


bunny x cat

by RenderedReversed



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, Gamer Loki, Gaming, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nerdiness, Streamer AU, Streamer Thor, They get shipped together, Twitch Chat, mmorpg au, thanks Twitch Chat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2019-07-29 14:56:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16266545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenderedReversed/pseuds/RenderedReversed
Summary: It happens on stream one day.[Oh, it’s Bunny God’s <wife>, Cat God.]...Or, in which Thor "Bunny God" Odinson is pretty bad at hiding his crush on the infamous, frame-perfect Cat God, and elsewhere, Loki "Silvertongue" turned "Cat God" Laufeyson is just asking for a friend, how much screaming is socially permissable when your long-time idol starts calling you his wife?It's Loki. Loki's the friend. He's asking for himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some terms/ideas are defined at the bottom for those unfamiliar with this type of au.

It happens on stream one day.

[Oh, it’s Bunny God’s <wife>, Cat God.]

Thor doesn’t actually remember the question it was a reply to, but ever since then, it’s always [his <wife> this] and [his <wife> that]…sometimes even just [where’s <wifey>?] during the rare times he’s streaming GFO and playing alone.

As any good, popular streamer would do, Thor just rolls with it. Twitch chat is a culture on its own. If they say Cat God is his wife, than that’s what they’ve deemed to call him.

It gets so bad that the artist who he regularly commissions for subscriber emotes—who also follows the stream—recommends a Cat God emote. Against his better judgement, Thor agrees. It’s cute, anyway, and he has loads of emotes for his own in-game persona Bunny God. In that context, it’s not weird.

His chat ends up spamming it every time Cat God pulls off an amazing play. Which, Cat God being Cat God, is often.

Eventually, one Cat God emote becomes two, and two becomes a special “double release” emote for Valentines Day with both Thor’s character and Cat God forming a heart with their hands when placed side-by-side. Officially, it’s the reward for getting to 10,000 subscribers.

And then one of his mods say, “I think you should add Cat God to your FAQ. A lot of people have been asking if you’re actually dating,” which promptly throws Thor into an early mid-life crisis.

So his in-game character has a ship with another in-game character. Big deal. That happens all the time. When he still played competitively, fans would throw him into ships with all sorts of other players, be they on his team or not, and _that_ hadn’t affected his real life relationship at the time like, at all (mostly because Jane was Asgard’s team manager and understood the culture before they got together, but still).

The problem is. Maybe it’s a little weird? If Cat God doesn’t see it that way. Thor doesn’t really know. Cat God knows he streams. Cat God also gave permission to allow himself to be streamed by proxy. But that had been that.

If Cat God ever tuned into one of Thor’s streams, he never made himself known. Does Cat God even know how many people _watch_ Thor? Does he even watch streams? Would getting called your friend-slash-partner-slash-animal bro’s wife by several thousand people who watch you play together on a semi-regular basis be…weird?

Thor doesn’t think it is, but maybe he’s just immune. And then the mid-life crisis comes in, because after his failure of a relationship with Jane, his… _thing_ for one of the rival pro players in a scene he’s declared himself retired from, and now Cat God, Thor is never going to manage forming a meaningful romantic relationship with anyone.

All the people he likes or has liked in the past are either a) incompatible with his lifestyle or b) compatible but probably don’t return the modicum of squishy feelings he has for them before he squishes them out himself.

Category a) is where Jane, Sif, and all his short-lived flings fall into. Category b) holds exactly two people—the most recent—and he’s not sure how he feels about that.

Thor draws the venn diagram and can’t find a single thing to put in the middle. He ends up trashing the piece of paper and going on a 7-hour raid spree with Cat God instead.

It all comes to a head one day when Thor, enjoying some downtime with Cat as they farm dungeon drops, starts to idly read the chat as well.

This isn’t odd in and of itself; Cat’s used to sharing Thor with an entire audience of other people, and while he occasionally partakes in the conversation, most of the time Thor just does his thing. They’d had slightly awkward moments in the beginning where it was hard to tell who Thor was talking to, but Cat’s gotten better at telling Thor’s different voices apart—which is his streamer voice and which is his normal voice chat voice, according to him.

“—Best baked salmon I ever ate,” Cat is saying, completely nonchalant even as he’s surrounded by a mob of Fire Giants, “And I never found that restaurant again. It’s like it just vanished into thin air—couldn’t even find it on Yelp.”

Thor grins and sends his own bunny army to help out. “You sound hungry, Cat. Should I Uber Eats you something?”

[I’ll cook for you Cat!! I can’t let!! my cat son starve!!]

[CatCry CatCry BunLuv]

[Bunny taking good care of the wife lol]

“Tempting. All my roommates are out so it looks like it’s my turn to cook today, unless they bring back 2AM leftovers.”

Thor frowns. Back in Asgard gaming house, the team would always eat their meals together. He no longer lives with them, of course, but old habits die hard. “Eating alone?”

“Mmm, no—eating with you,” Cat answers slyly. Thor can hear the smile in his voice.

There’s a literal deluge of [CatHeart BunHeart] emote spam.

[Help guys my heart can’t take this]

[CRYING]

[Alert alert the wife is too cute]

Thor almost swallows his own tongue. “Yeah, he is,” he says, and then asks, “When do you want to break for dinner then?”

“Mmm, few more runs? I figured we should’ve gotten a Leprecowl card by now…”

Thor grins. “I guess you could say the cards—”

“ _Ugh_ , no don’t say it…”

“—are stacked against us then.”

The chat fills with [Kappa]. Someone asks: [Hey @BunnyGod are you ever gonna facecam with Cat?]

Thor reads the question out loud before answering.

“You can pray, but it’s extremely unlikely,” he jokes, inwardly mourning the fact that he hasn’t even been able to _video call_ with Cat yet, never mind be in the same location to facecam. “We live in the same timezone, but Cat’s NorCal and I’m SoCal at the moment.”

[ :( ]

[Hey @BunnyGod, long-time follower ever since the old RS days. Do you still talk to ASG?]

They make it to the boss room which means Thor has to semi-concentrate. Technical party size recommendation is 4 players at their level, but he and Cat have duo’d harder dungeons. It just takes a little more time and practice to do.

After moving from Ragnarok Saga to Grand Fantasy Online, he lost some of his old followers but kept a good amount of them. Many fans of RS were also fans of GFO. The majority of new GFO-only followers he gained found him through the YouTube clips his followers made of his gameplay with Cat.

‘GFO Invoke BT Duo Under 10min’ and ‘Hell’s Garden Run with 2 BTs’ were just a few examples.

Before the boss can release its red blood attack, Cat cancels its animation channel with a quick Charm, stopping it from dealing a massive, full-map-attack blow. That’s Cat God’s speciality—frame-perfect calculations that quite honestly make many of their more difficult runs possible.

Thor’s under no illusions that his friend is a ‘normal’ player by any sense of the word—maybe less than 5% of GFO’s player base can accomplish a red blood animation cancel, and less than 1% have the capability to do it _consistently_. There’s only maybe one, two frames’ worth of wiggle room before the boss starts its channel that the attack can be canceled. There are tricks, of course, to make it more humanly feasible, and certain bosses are rumored to be ‘easier’ to cancel than others, but Thor’s never seen anyone do it as well as Cat.

Cat’s animation cancel success rate? Thor’d have to put it at around 90%, independent of the actual boss. To put that into perspective, Thor, a retired, world-class pro player back in RS, which was not too different mechanically compared to GFO, would judge his own success rate to be at maybe 75-80%. Still very high, but significantly less than Cat’s.

The first time he’d realized how good Cat God was, was the same day he realized the ‘God’ part of his name probably had legitimate reason to be there.

Emote spam fills the chat.

[Cat God, putting his husband on his back]

[5th time in a row ez np]

[Finally Bunny’s time to get carried post-retirement BunYay]

Thor laughs. “Chat says you’re carrying me.”

“Well, if you’re just going to stand there, I suppose I am,” Cat said dryly.

“And watch my wife do all the work? Sounds like a plan,” Thor jokes.

He realizes his mistake just as it slips out of his mouth.

Cat goes suspiciously silent. Well—arguably not suspicious; red blood is the most important time of a boss fight as the boss’ strength increases and new attacks are thrown into the mix. His character’s still moving, at least, but Thor knows for a fact that Cat’s perfectly able to carry a conversation while fighting this boss because they’ve fought it like a million times already, 5th time today, and oh god he made it weird didn’t he—

Is his face red? It totally is; his facecam’s on and all of his thousand-some viewers can see it and _this is totally going to get clipped, isn’t it?_

Discord pings.

Did…did Cat just hang up on him?

“Um,” says Thor.

[LOL]

[Oh my god???]

[Rip Bunny]

[（／_＼）Wifey got mad]

They finish the boss off, but all Thor can feel is a gaining sense of dread. He—okay, yes, he’s got a soft spot for Cat. Asgard was his team and they’d reached the top together because they worked well with each other, both as players and as people, but it had also been a job. They had been a family and a team and coworkers at the same time. There was an underlying expectation that they _had_ to work well together, or else they would have to learn.

But. With Cat…

Ever since the beginning when Thor had approached him on a whim for having a matching name there had been the sense of affinity. Thor took a liking to him even where they differed—likes him especially more _where_ they differ.

He thinks, how could one person be so completely pleasing to him? It feels like a directed attack on his heart, almost, whenever Cat says something that could be construed in a more intimate fashion, or when Cat does something particularly masterful without a second thought. When he says, ‘ _I think you’re pretty great too_ ,’ using all words but those—or maybe, really, just when he breathes. Exists.

 _Of course_ Thor likes him. What isn’t there to like?

Discord pings.

“Welcome back,” Thor says, all reflex.

“Thanks,” Cat says. He sounds a little out of breath, but then again, that could be just Thor. “Discord died. What were we talking about again?”

“I—” He had a choice. He could just take back what he said, and—

“Oh, right,” says Cat before Thor can make up his mind. “You’re going to carry me for the next round, yes?”

“What?”

“Well, equality and all that. I won’t stand for having a useless husband.”

 

 

Thor doesn’t choke, but it is a very near thing. “Useless,” he repeats, and tries to sound mock-offended instead of just breathless. It probably? Works? No one calls him out on it, so Thor considers it a win.

“Mmhm, and you know what else a good husband would do?”

Thor knows _exactly_ what that lilt to his voice entails. He can feel himself start to smile. “What?”

“He would get me Uber Eats so I could have dinner while he carries me,” Cat says slyly.

Thor laughs. “Okay, give me a second. Anything in particular you’re in the mood for?”

Cat hums. “I think I’m feeling Thai food today,” he says.

“Whatever you say, Cat.”

“Mmm, now you’re getting it.” The sound of shifting comes through the mic. “Oh, and would you look at that, a Leprecowl card.”

And just like that, the moment’s over. But.

Maybe it’s just Thor, but they feel a little closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **edit:** the amazing [feriswheel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feriswheel/pseuds/feriswheel) drew the loki art in this chapter!! <33 thank you eris T_T
> 
> This is all one elaborate shitpost
> 
> \---Some BG Info/Terms:---
> 
>  **Twitch TV** : a dominant streaming platform for gamers. 
> 
> **Twitch emotes** : viewers can follow or subscribe ($) to a streamer. Subscribers will get access to channel-exclusive emotes. (e.g. CatCry, BunLuv, etc.)
> 
> The more subscriptions a streamer has, the more emote slots they unlock. Streamers often commission a particular artist to make emotes for them in order to keep the same art style, though it isn't necessary. 
> 
> There are also global emotes like Kappa and PogChamp that anyone can use. 'Kappa' is roughly equivalent to troll face, or lol, and PogChamp is roughly equivalent to hype or excitement, though it can also be used sarcastically.
> 
>  **mods** : for Twitch, these are chat moderators who help keep the chat under control, and are picked by the streamer. They may also send important notifications to the streamer if the streamer isn't currently looking at chat.
> 
>  **dungeon runs** : dungeons in GFO are instanced, meaning each party gets their own instance of a dungeon to run without competition from outsiders (e.g. Hell's Garden). At the end of each dungeon is a boss (e.g. Invoke). 
> 
> Usually the monsters inside are significantly stronger, so high-risk high-reward.
> 
>  **facecaming** : most streamers use a facecam to show their face while they stream, usually a small box in a corner so the main focus is on the gameplay (but not always). Sharing a facecam is common for streams with multiple hosts.
> 
>  **party** : a group of players. Parties can share their own separate chat in-game, designate drop sharing options, and get increased bonuses for experience.
> 
>  **BT** : GFO slang for Beast Tamer class.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It starts long before Cat God, but the creation of Cat God is a pretty good place to start.

_After a hard-fought victory for 1_ _ st _ _place at the World Championships, Asgard’s team captain_ **_Thor “Bunny God” Odinson_ ** _officially announced his retirement on…_

_…Sad day for everyone in RS eSports…_

Loki stares at the news article on his phone. He tries refreshing the page. He tries closing the browser. He even tries using Safari on the slim chance that Google Chrome compatibility issues have finally crossed into the _n_ -th dimension, one where there’s an eSports retiring epidemic or something and Bunny God had fallen ill to it.

But, no.

 **ASG CAPTAIN BUNNY GOD ANNOUNCES RETIRMENT** is still the top headline.

Loki slams his hands on the table and stands up.

“I’m retiring too!”

The team meeting, which had been droning on about preparing for the new season, possible meta changes, bootcamp, etcetera (all rather boring, which is why Loki had decided to fuck around on his phone in the first place) grinds to a halt.

It’s as dead as a graveyard at Loki’s announcement.

Slowly, as if one of her star players hadn’t just announced his intention to retire, Team Captain Dire— _“Like ‘deer’, not ‘dire’, please.”_ —places down her pen, sets aside her notebook, clasps her hands together and says, “Loki, please tell me this isn’t about Thor retiring.”

Loki tries not to bristle. He has nothing against her personally; Dire is a fair leader. Taking her team to Worlds three years in a row is proof enough of her strength, and Loki can respect at least that. She was also the one to scout him, so he _supposes_ he should feel a little thankful to her, but.

She’s the exact type of person he loves to bully most. As long as the temptation to pummel her into the ground in-game exists, there’s no way he’ll ever like her—that’s just facts. It’s only because they’re on the same team that he’s held back whenever they practice together.

“Without Bunny God, there’s no one else worth playing,” he says, stuffing his belongings into his bag.

There’s quite a bit he’ll have to pack up back at the gaming house, but there’s nothing big. Loki estimates it’ll take no more than two, three hours to pick up and leave.

Dire stands up. “Everyone’s sad about Thor retiring, but you can’t just _leave_ —”

“I can, will, and _am_ , thanks.”

Jackal, Dire Wolves’ Vice Captain, stands and moves to block him.

If Loki’s respect is enough to prevent him from pummeling Captain Dire into the ground whenever they practice together, then no such respect exists between him and Jackal. For one, Jackal mains Dragon Knight and Loki hates Dragon Knights.

For two—

“Hey,” Jackal barks, “Everyone knows you’re a selfish jackass, but think about the team for once. Dire Wolves just got 2nd place at Worlds—we can _win_ next season!”

—That.

For three, Bunny God’s Crusader has an 85% 1v1 win-rate against Jackal’s Dragon Knight.

That makes Jackal’s Dragon Knight trash.

Therefore, Jackal is trash.

Loki barely restrains the urge to spit at him. Instead he says, “What’s the point in winning without Bunny God?”

Jackal throws his hands in the air. “There are at least three regions’ worth of other players that we have to beat and you’re concerned about fucking _Bunny God_? The captain of our fucking _rival team_? Do you have a few screws loose in your head or do you just think you’re _that_ hot shit?”

“Jackal,” Dire starts to say, but Jackal wrenches his arm away.

“No! You’re seriously just going to stand here and listen to him? He just asked _what the point in winning_ was. If he doesn’t want to win, then he shouldn’t be on the fucking team!”

Loki gives him a flat look. “What do you think I’m doing now, running for captain? I’m _leaving_ , dickhead.”

Jackal snaps his mouth shut. Then, he moves aside and motions to the door.

Loki sends him a mocking, beatific smile. “Thanks, moron.”

“Wait,” Dire says, “let’s just all calm down and talk this over.”

“There’s nothing to talk about. The season’s already over anyway, and so’s my contract.” Loki flips his hair over his shoulder and adds, “Bunny God’s retiring, and without him, this game is trash. I’ll e-mail the manager to make a statement. It’s been fun, but see you never!”

Then, he strolls right out the door.

“You just gave up your entire career over a guy who’s never even said two words to you before!” Jackal shouts at his back. “I hope your bad life decisions come back to bite you in the ass!”

Loki flips him a middle finger.

* * *

By the time the rest of the team gets back to the gaming house, Loki’s already packed up the entirety of his room’s contents into suitcases and booked a hotel. He has a flight set for two days’ from now, no plan in mind but—

At least he’s got a place to go home to, which is more than he had all those years ago.

He unpacks just enough for the night, then crawls into bed and snuggles into the pillows. It’s a king sized bed in a five-star hotel room because why not, and he figures he deserves the treat with the whole emotional heartbreak from earlier.

Dire Wolves’ management team aren’t bad people—they would’ve let him stay at the gaming house until he left, but Loki would rather not be around the team after walking out on them.

Besides, if he’s going to start crying, he wants a luxurious room to himself and ice cream on call just in case. A night-time dip in the pool wouldn’t hurt, either.

Loki pulls his Bunny God plushie into his arms and rolls onto his side. The clock on his laptop ticks down.

At 9PM sharp, the stream starts.

 _“Hey everyone,”_ Bunny God says, scratching the back of his neck. His hair is slightly damp, like he’d just gotten out of the shower. “ _I think most of you are tuning in because of the announcement earlier today, so…I’ll just say a few words to get that out of the way, yeah?”_

The chat scrolled in an endless spam of crying emojis. Loki fullscreens the window. Other people’s opinions don’t interest him.

Only Bunny God does.

 _“The years I spent playing Ragnarok Saga were great. It gave me friends, a family…all of you. And Asgard was the best team a captain could’ve ever hoped for.”_ Here, Bunny God smiles wistfully. _“I would’ve kept playing forever like that if I could. It was fun! We made a lot of fun memories together, but…life changes. Things happen. And I realized that I wasn’t the best fit to lead Asgard anymore.”_

_“I was glad I was able to take everyone to Worlds this final time, and when we won 1_ _ st _ _place…I think that was a sign. I did everything I wanted to do—everything I could, at least—and there’s nothing else RS can give me. Nothing else I can give RS. So. It’s time to hang up the jacket. I wish all my old teammates the best.”_

Loki squeezes his plushie tighter.

The news article called it an ‘end of an era’. Other streamers, casters, pros, fans said it was ‘heartbreaking’. They all ‘wished Bunny the best, whatever his next pursuit be’, and smiled, and laughed a little, adding, ‘retiring after getting the trophy he fought so long and hard for…is quite fitting’.

Those sentiments…yes, Loki supposes he feels them too, in some distant, cut-off part of him. But mostly, he feels empty.

He gave RS four years of his life, and he followed Bunny God for even longer. It’d started out as therapy, but it became so much more. Years of watching games he was hearing for the first time on a late night stream of only 100 viewers…watching that number climb higher and higher…watching Bunny God himself grow as a player…until one day—

_“‘Asgard’ qualified for Regionals today. I’m a little nervous, but excited, too. It’ll be our first time playing on the big stage, so…wish us luck!”_

—Maybe, Loki had thought, he could understand what about this game was so enjoyable, too.

Did he ever really find it?

Loki rolls over onto his back and stretches a hand out to the ceiling. His black nail polish is chipping—he’ll have to redo it soon—and there’s a small ache there when he bends his fingers. It builds in his palm and wrist.

He thinks, three years of chasing, three years of playing, and now it’s over.

“Fun,” Loki echoes, trying to put the same genuine intonation in it as Bunny God had. His voice falls flat.

Games are supposed to be fun. He thinks he must’ve enjoyed it to do it competitively for three years straight, putting up with people he didn’t like for near 16 hours a day to play against the people he did for a fraction of that time. But it had been easy to leave—easy to say he was retiring and go through with it—and even now, Loki doesn’t feel a thing.

Is it really fun, if he can give it up the next day and be so unbothered about it?

Or in the end, does it really come back around to Bunny God, who without, Loki doesn’t really know how to have fun otherwise?

He thinks, three years of chasing, three years of playing, and now it’s over. He’ll never see Bunny God in real life again—never feel the exhilaration of playing against him again.

It’ll be like the old times. He won’t even be Dire Wolve’s Silvertongue anymore—just another tick to the stream viewer count, an anonymous IGN in an ocean of thousands.

Loki lets his hand fall.

An end to an era indeed.

Laughter cuts through the perpetual shroud of melancholy he’d fallen into. Surprised, Loki turns back to the stream.

 _“Without RS, it feels like I have so much free time now,”_ Thor says, grinning. _“I honestly have no idea what to do.”_

…He must’ve been reading chat. Answering questions. Loki rolls onto his side to watch.

_“Oh? Any games I’ve been meaning to play? Well, I’ve been meaning to catch up on some of my console games, actually—maybe I’ll stream those. You can all watch me die in Dragon Quest.”_

That’s right. Before Bunny God had started taking RS seriously, he’d played and streamed a variety of games. How long has it been since Loki’s been able to watch one of those? He’s spent so much time practicing, scrimming, and preparing for the next match that he’d hardly had time for himself, never mind tuning into one of Bunny God’s streams…

 _“‘Hey Bunny God, have you ever thought about playing another MMORPG?’”_ Bunny God reads. _“A little too soon to say… Oh, but there was one Sif was telling me about the other day. It looked pretty good. Maybe I’ll try it?_

_“It’s called Grand Fantasy Online.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---Some Terms:---
> 
>  **eSports:** pretty self explanatory; the field of video game competitions. Similar to normal sports, they have their own seasons and tournaments during that season.
> 
>  **meta:** stands for Most Effective Tactic Available in games
> 
>  **bootcamp:** within video games, some regions have a more competitive regular scene then others (not talking about pro scene). During the off-season, pros may "bootcamp" in other regions to further practice their technical skills.
> 
>  **gaming house:** many pro teams live together in a large house/mansion called a "gaming house" to promote team bonding. Players live together, eat together, play together, etc., and most necessities (and luxuries) are provided to them, like a team of personal chefs, mental health professionals, and more materially, high end gaming computers and the like.
> 
>  **scrimming:** practice matches against other pro teams
> 
>  **IGN:** stands for in-game name


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor has a crush. In other news, water is wet.

Thor generally doesn’t play early in the morning.

Viewer count is higher at night as people get home from school and work, and it’s more convenient to run errands during the day anyway. Weekends are a different matter, of course, but there are other parts of the business than the actual streaming that he has to take care of, and that’s easier to handle during the day also.

However, the benefit of full-time streaming is making his own schedule. So…there are exceptions.

“Morning,” says a lazy, sleepy voice.

A fond grin sneaks its way onto his face.

“Morning, Cat,” says Thor, and laughs when he hears Cat God yawn. “Not a morning person?”

“I operate on a strictly night owl schedule,” Cat grumbles. “None of this ‘early bird gets the worm’ business. Mornings are for self-reflective languishing.”

Thor hears the clink of a glass against the tabletop and a soft sigh. It’s a struggle not to dream of reaching through his monitor and snuggling this sleepy, grumpy Cat. Maybe he’d be amendable to a nap against someone? Breakfast in bed? Cuddling under the blankets to combat the autumn morning chills?

Thor swallows. “Coffee or tea?”

“Anything brewed and black like my soul,” Cat says seriously.

Thor takes that bit of knowledge and tucks it away in his treasure box of Cat facts. “Which one are you drinking right now?”

“Tea. Are the patch notes up?”

Thor pulls the browser window onto his main screen and hums. “Posted just a few minutes ago. From what I can see, it’s mostly bug fixes from the last big update.”

They both scroll down. The major reason they’re online right now is the release of GFO’s Halloween event, which runs throughout the entire month of October. The event itself is divided into several subsections, but the overarching theme is ‘item collection’.

Kill monsters in order to get Halloween Candy, the event currency, and trade those in at Halloween Town for rewards. This can naturally be done at any time, but their goal isn’t the regular mobs—it’s the event bosses.

“Pumpkin King, Vampire Lord, Witch Queen, Emperor Lich…the big guilds will probably target that one.”

“Oh, the drop table is good?”

“Mmm,” Cat says, “Not bad. It drops a lot of crafting mats, and the stats on the equips are mid to high tier.”

“We can hunt those after the competition has died down, then,” Thor decides. “Which of the other three are you after?”

“Vampire Lord or Witch Queen,” Cat says immediately. “I want the cosmetic items.”

Which, no argument there. Both he and Cat God have spent more funds than they should’ve on pure cosmetics. Rather than ‘Grand Fantasy Online’, sometimes Thor thinks it’s more fitting to call it ‘Grand Fashion Online’…

He grins. “Hey, if I dress up as a witch, does that make you my black cat familiar?”

Without missing a beat, Cat says in that sly, lilting way of his, “You would make your own wife a familiar? How cruel.”

“You know I’d take excellent care of you,” Thor teases. “Feed you three meals a day, baths, toys, attention…”

“I _do_ like attention,” muses Cat. “And baths.”

“Oh, a hygenic cat, are you?”

“Just a cat who knows how to enjoy the finer things in life—like hot baths.”

Thor very valliantly does _not_ think about spoiling Cat God in a bathtub. It’s a little easier in that he doesn’t know what he looks like, but—

A certain dark-haired, beautiful RS player comes to mind.

Thor bangs his elbow against the table.

“Are you okay?”

“Peachy,” Thor says weakly. “Which boss did you want to go after first?”

“I want the cat cape.”

“Of course you do. Alright, Witch Queen first.”

The thing about field boss hunting with two players is, well, it’s hard. Even if the boss itself doesn’t prove challenging, because they’re out in the field and not in an instance dungeon, there’s a high possibility of other players coming by and kill-stealing. Most players are nice, but event bosses bring out the worst in everyone—with large guilds monopolizing the more popular spawn spots, it’s usually not worth taking the risk and duoing.

Key word being ‘usually’. The unique advantage of playing double Beast Tamers is that, given a high enough skill at micromanaging summons, either of them can juggle DPS or tank. It’s an incredibly versatile class only capped by its difficulty to play at such a level…and the amount of gold it takes to fund everything.

The problem, then, narrows down to KSing. They don’t necessarily solve it, but going to a high level area with difficult surrounding mobs decreases the chance of a party stumbling upon them.

Besides, not to brag or anything, but playing frontline is Thor’s _thing_. If he can’t hold aggro against a random passerby, he’s got more problems than a single boss hunt.

—Anyway, that’s usually why he refrains from streaming their hunts for the first week or so to ensure no one ghosts them. He suspects Cat God wouldn’t actually mind and would rather delight in the opportunity to PK someone, but better safe than sorry.

They manage to hunt three Witch Queens at Divide Mountain before another party finds them.

[Only 2? Wanna join parties?]

Thor types back: [Thanks for the offer, but we’re fine.]

“They’re probably going to try and KS us,” Cat says.

“Probably,” Thor agrees.

Lo and behold, on the next Witch Queen, Thor spies the party that had approached them skulking around the edges. The boss’ health is around a third left—some time before red blood, but not much.

“Thor, take aggro.” He can practically hear Cat God licking his lips. “I’m going to go make ‘em my bitch.”

It’s obvious what Cat God is planning. Thor laughs. “Oh, you’re terrible.”

“They shouldn’t have picked a fight if they didn’t want trouble.”

Cat God breaks off from the formation and Thor takes over. Tempted by the disappearance of a player, the party converges and begins to attack the Witch Queen. Thor stays calm. At precisely every burst of damage, he commands his armored bunny to taunt, never allowing them to pull aggro to themselves.

Whoever has the boss’ aggro has the power to manipulate its movements. As long as Thor has it, he can lure the boss in whatever direction he likes.

He figures the party won’t bother with PKing him—many players find it troublesome to tote the red name around, especially if they need to head in to town. Prices for PKers are inflated, and the punishment for death increases significantly. Any sort of hunting turns inconvenient with that risk.

As he’s busy with that, Thor keeps half an eye on the mini-map.

Cat God is coming back. And he brings company.

Event bosses are passive monsters, so it’s just common sense to clear the surrounding mobs before attacking them. That doesn’t mean, however, they killed _all_ of them. There’s too many anyway, and they wouldn’t want them to respawn anywhere near where they’re hunting the Witch Queen.

That means Cat can run off and lure some over. With his feline army of summons, the amount of monsters is definitely not little.

Thor lures the Witch Queen in Cat’s direction, still keeping aggro. Just as the party starts to follow, Cat intercepts their attacks with his lured swarm of monsters, redirecting _their_ aggro to the other party.

Wyverns, armored bears, man-eating plants… The reason no one likes hunting in this map is because of how pesky the monsters are. High health, a wide spread of elemental resistances, and one flying mob in the Wyvern—it’s just not worth it.

The other party, of course, isn’t given the chance to refuse Cat’s ‘present’.

“They’re sending the Assassin to KS,” Cat says. “Can you handle him? I’m going to PK their healer.”

“Go ahead,” Thor says. He sees the Assassin approaching in the corner of his screen.

At the last second, Thor pulls back his summons and allows the Assassin to take aggro just as red blood hits.

He can see the instant regret as the assassin tries to backtrack, but Thor had pulled the Witch Queen far enough to be out of their healer’s range—who is currently occupied anyway, Thor sees with a quick check.

[ ✧/ᐠ-ꞈ-ᐟ\∫ ] Cat God says, just as he kills the healer.

[ ／(=✪ x ✪=)＼ ] Bunny God says, right before the Assassin dies to red blood Witch Queen.

“Might as well PK the rest of them,” says Cat. “Let me take out their tank, then bring her over here.”

“Sure,” says Thor. He regains aggro before Witch Queen can recover any health and sends forth his frontline bunnies, not doing any damage but just tanking. One red blood animation cancel later, Cat calls him over.

Thor comes, red blood Witch Queen and all.

The party tries to switch targets, but their health is already low, and with Cat God running interference…combined with the red blood attack of Witch Queen…

Cat God says: [Thanks for playing with us ✧/ᐠ-ꞈ-ᐟ\∫ ]

…They send the party straight back to the rebirth point.

“Shame they got my name red,” says Cat, “But you’ll protect me, right?”

“You just wanted an excuse to PK whoever else comes,” Thor accuses.

“Oh, caught,” Cat says, not sounding very caught at all. “Farming is boring. It’s the random parties that think they can KS us that make it exciting.”

“Well, as long as you’re having fun, I guess it’s alright then,” Thor says dryly.

“I am, thanks.” Cat pauses, and then, “Hey, a Witch Hat—not bad. Here, put this on.”

Thor laughs and accepts the trade. Cat ends up putting on a pair of cat ears and tail from a prior event, and Thor dresses his character in colors to match. With the addition of their matching names, they kind of look like…a couple.

That, Thor thinks, is a very bad road he should not go down.

“We should join the costume contest going on in the forums,” says Cat.

“Oh, what’s the prize?”

“Couple rings,” Cat says casually.

…One of these days, Thor is going to die of a heart attack and his cause of death will be Cat God.

* * *

The costume contest is already linked and pinned on Thor’s Discord server. In fact, there’s already an active discussion channel for it, and someone has made a timer to count down to the contest’s closing.

Aside from the forum link and timer, the third pin is a strawpoll on costume ideas for he and Cat. There are currently 30 votes for ‘Wedding (with bats)’.

Thor thinks he should feel betrayed. Aren’t his moderators working a little too fast here?

> **Bunny God:** ………How do you even know Cat and I are participating………  
>  **Shishishi:** ^_^7  
>  **Shishishi:** Work hard boss!  
>  **Bunny God:** ????????  
>  **Shishishi:** To give us good ship material hehehe  
>  **Bunny God:** Banned. Turn in your mod badge to Turnip  
>  **Shishishi:** #worth **  
> Shishishi:** Turnip made the strawpoll btw

Thor Googles ‘ _How much trouble would it cause me to replace my entire mod team’_ and takes a screenshot.

> **Shishishi:** jokes on you, your followers love us  
>  **Shishishi:** I showed that to Turnip btw  
>  **Shishishi:** He sends his love and asks if you don’t want your wife, can he have him?

Wordlessly, Thor switches to the server and takes a screenshot of the ‘Ban TurnipTime’ button. He DMs it to Turnip without context.

> **TurnipTime:** love u 2 boss  
>  **TurnipTime:** don’t ask me to wear your badge tho  
>  **TurnipTime:** my heart belongs to cat :^)  
>  **Bunny God:** …I have evaluated your loyalty and deem that you pass  
>  **TurnipTime:** nice. tell cat i love him  
>  **Bunny God:** I have received your suggestion and decided to ignore it  
>  **TurnipTime:** wow hey rude

Thor thinks a lot about how fortunate he is to have his friend all to himself. He can’t _not_ think about it. As evident by the fact that his Discord server is practically a Cat God shrine, Cat is well-loved. He gets asked questions whenever Thor’s streaming. Thor has to _filter out_ questions is how bad it sometime gets, and yet.

Cat is perfectly content to spend time with just Thor.

Is it weird to get a little possessive? Is he overstepping his boundaries? On days when his head decides it’s a perfectly grand time to hate himself, Thor thinks about it.

Cat likes praise. If Cat is happy, Thor is happy. Thus, it follows that it pleases him when people compliment Cat. And it does, so _that_ makes sense.

But then he gets jealous of people taking up Cat’s time. He gets possessive when someone asks him for Cat’s Discord ID. When he looks at his FAQ and sees ‘ _we’re not dating’_ , he doesn’t like it.

Cat is his own person. Thor thinks about that a lot. And sometimes, he thinks about how scared he is that his own feelings might be encroaching on that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile Loki: Thor is literally one of the most beloved RS players of all time, bithc you think i have it easy, in this essay i will
> 
> \---Some Terms:---
> 
>  **drop table** : list of items and how often they drop for a particular monster
> 
>  **mats** : short for materials
> 
>  **cosmetic items** : equips that don't have any stats and are purely for looks. Most games make it so they go on top of your normal equips, so players don't have to sacrifice looks for functionality or vice versa. They're often very expensive due to high demand (and are very rare as monster drops; Loki gets lucky in this chapter).
> 
>  **aggro** : short for aggressive; a monster's "attention", or their target. Aggressive monsters attack players on sight while passive monsters don't. After engaging in battle, the monster will target either a) whoever attacked it first, b) whoever is the closest, or c) whoever deals the most damage. Targets can switch mid-battle and will for boss monsters unless proper control is maintained. Taunt skills draw the monster's aggro regardless of these conditions.
> 
>  **DPS** : damage per second. Synonymous to attacker role, or who deals the major damage per second
> 
>  **tank** : frontliner who soaks up all the damage to protect the backline
> 
>  **PK** : player kill; when a player kills another player outside of a duel or player vs player arena. Usually comes with repercussions. A PKer is someone who PKs.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki has a crush. In other news, Thor has one, too.

Loki tends to make bad life decisions.

It isn’t a major thing or anything, but it does mean that when Thor says, “And watch my wife do all the work? Sounds like a plan,” Loki knows the number one thing he absolutely _cannot do_ is trust himself with this. He’s going to fuck it up. There’s no universe in which he _doesn’t_ fuck it up. In fact, he’s probably going to fuck this up so bad, some alternate-universe him will take pity on him and blow his dimension up to save him from the embarrassment.

So, instead of watching it happen before his very eyes, Loki does the next best thing: he hangs up the call, screams his lungs out, and opens up his DMs with Nebula on his other Discord account.

> **Silvertongue:** SOSOSOSOS HE CALLED ME HIS WIFE WHAT DO I DO.  
>  **Silvertongue:** @Neuronetic  
>  **Silvertongue:** @Neuronetic  
>  **Silvertongue:** @Neuronetic

Nebula, who he knows is at her girlfriend’s apartment doing a joint stream, seems to respond especially slow. Loki has never been so infuriated watching the _Neuronetic is typing…_ text at the bottom of the screen. 

> **Neuronetic:** Aren’t there other problems you should be addressing first, like I don’t know, the fact that you’re kind of catfishing your crush?

Loki clicks his tongue. He gives half his attention to the boss, the other half to replying.

> **Silvertongue:** Listen, solving problems is a slow process meant for people who have their life together. I clearly do not fit those requirements  
>  **Silvertongue:** Do you have advice or not??  
>  **Neuronetic:** You’re hopeless  
>  **Neuronetic:** Flirt back.

…Flirt back. Flirt? Back??? Will that work? Can he do that? Like, okay, he _can_ , but is that physically allowed? Isn’t it against the rules?

‘Never flirt with your idol.’

‘Never flirt with your idol on _stream_.’

‘In fact, don’t even talk to them. Admire from afar.’

Loki considers that last one. Huh. If they let that one pass, maybe he actually can flirt back.

> **Neuronetic:** Your message popped up on stream btw. 2,000 people are now asking for context  
>  **Silvertongue:** :snake: :snake: :eggplant:

Okay. He can totally do this. The boss is almost dead. Deep breaths.

…Maybe he can scream a little more before that…

Five minutes later, Loki wants to scream again. He did that. He totally did that. He called Thor ( _Bunny God!!!_ ) his husband. And Thor _went along with it_. Good god, he’s a god at this.

> **Silvertongue:** Have I ever told you I love you  
>  **Neuronetic:** 2,158 people asking for context

* * *

Okay, so sometimes, Loki’s life decisions are actually pretty fucking good.

Exhibit A) his Bunny God plushie, specially commissioned from one of his favorite Etsy plushie makers who was doing special commisson slots on video game characters. True, Dire Wolves judged him so hard for a good week after seeing it, but he’d crushed anyone who’d said a word during practice. They learned to shut up.

Exhibit B) making (another) Discord account. Nebula would argue differently, but Loki’s confident about this one. He has three in total:

Silvertongue, his main account that he uses for games not named GFO;

Cat God, his second account that he uses almost exclusively to talk to Thor;

And SeidrFrost, his account for Thor’s Discord server.

The thing is, ‘Silvertongue’ on Twitch has been subscribed to Bunny God since before DW Silvertongue ever became a thing. Since he hadn’t ever been noticed, Loki assumes it’s safe to let that one stay. Besides, he likes the seniority, even if no one sees it. _Discord_ , however, is a whole other matter—there are some pro players from RS in there who would definitely recognize his tag, so a third account it is.

Cat God, after all, has always been a separate entity from Thor’s streaming community. If he joined Thor’s Discord server, then there’d also be an expectation to appear in his Twitch chat sometimes…and while that would certainly be hilarious, Loki kind of gets the sense that Thor doesn’t want that to happen.

…He supposes all the emojis would be a little awkward to explain, Loki thinks wryly.

Just the thought of it makes him want to laugh. Thor has a good artist, at least; they’re very cute.He’s particularly fond of the matching sets, though all of Cat God’s emojis are _the best_ , of course.

(SeidrFrost uses them liberally.)

Considering that the three accounts work in mutually exclusive spheres of influence, they can’t _really_ be considered sock puppets, can they? It’s like work vs. personal accounts. Good and necessary and totally socially acceptable.

So Loki makes good decisions—sometimes.

Other times...

[Laufeyson?]

How does he know. How does he _know_?

[Strange], Loki types back, totally the worst decision. He should've just let it go, ignored him, acted like he had no idea who he was talking to. But. He didn't. Because he knows exactly who it is. He knew from the first second. His old teammate’s play style still bleeds through, after all, from a fellow RS Witch to a GFO Sorcerer.

Besides, his IGN’s literally DrStrange. There’s no hiding that one.

…Maybe a little context is necessary.

A long time ago, when Loki was just a green sprout joining the competitive RS scene—with a very convincing turnout, of course—Stephen “DrStrange” Strange was one of the top Witches in RS. He was also retiring from Dire Wolves after that season, and Loki was meant to be his replacement.

It was the way of things. Strange had some sort of health problem he hadn’t seen fit to reveal the details of, so while he still could play, it was with due moderation. He spent much of his scheduled practice time training Loki.

Strange was arrogant. Despotic. A know-it-all of the highest caliber. Annoying, Loki remembers thinking.

But he was also the only one willing to 1v1 Silvertongue 10 matches in a row and then debate strategy for hours after _without_ raging, so he was a little okay, Loki grudgingly admits.

DrStrange: [Does Thor know that’s you?]

But before Loki can answer—

DrStrange: [Of course not. It’s you we’re talking about.]

Cat God: [What’s that supposed to mean??]

[It means], Strange says, and Loki can just imagine that condescending look of his as he says something that should be _obvious, Laufeyson, what happened to your brain?_ —[You’re both being ridiculous and I don’t want to get involved.]

Loki breathes a minute sigh of relief. Then he blinks at himself and scowls. [Can you even play GFO?]

DrStrange: [Got better. Finished rehab.]

Cat God: [Congratulations, I suppose]

DrStrange: [Hm. Thank you. I didn’t know you cared.]

Loki vigorously types: [I absolutely, definitely, one-hundred percent do NOT. Your mental and physical health is the last of my concerns. Play for 10 hours and see if I care. And don’t expect me to call an ambulance if you collapse on your keyboard again.]

He pauses. Then he adds: [Also, I’m not Silvertongue. Do not interact with me. You’re too obvious.]

DrStrange: [Ok.]

**< DrStrange> has sent you a friend request.**

**Accept?**

**YES NO**

Loki is one nanosecond away from clicking ‘no’ when Strange says: [Thor talks about you occasionally.]

Loki slumps. He clicks ‘yes’. They move to a private chat window and simultaneously part ways on the map.

Cat God: […Is he complimentary?]

DrStrange: [No. He curses you all day. It’s extremely liberating to see. What do you think?]

DrStrange: [Yes. It’s sickening. Please make a move so he can stop.]

The sound that makes its way out of Loki’s mouth is inhuman. He slaps a hand over his mouth, but that doesn’t stop him from kicking his legs and spinning a circle in his chair. And then he reads the second part and frowns.

Cat God: [Look, you don’t have to be rude about it]

Loki knows, okay, that online is different. He’s aware of the fact that what Thor says is mostly a joke, and if he plays it up for his stream, then that only adds to his viewer count and Discord activity. It’s a game Loki knows good and well—that he’s liked but not liked _that way_ , that wives and husbands are no more than affectionate nicknames on the net that carry no more proof than a smiley face over Kik.

Thor allows the #shipping channel but never visits it. He allows the events and the fanfiction and the fanart and the emojis but doesn’t actually use them. And he never, ever talks about Cat on his own free will—he just doesn’t. Only when he’s asked a question neutral enough does he ever reply.

Thor draws the line very distinctly within his sphere of influence. They’re boundary lines. They say, ‘Cat and I are good friends, but we’re not a couple. It’s fine to joke around, but please don’t disturb him about it’, all very politely.

And because Thor respects all of Loki’s boundaries, both reasonable and unreasonable, it’s only right that Loki respects Thor’s in turn.

DrStrange: [Is Thor why you retired?]

Ah, the holy grail question. That year, Loki hadn’t given a reason in his statement, and Dire Wolves hadn’t said anything, either. Other than that…he wasn’t really close with anyone in the league, so no one else knew.

Cat God: [RS is trash without Bunny God, try and change my mind.]

DrStrange: [Predictable.]

Cat God: [Is that all you wanted? Confirmation?]

DrStrange: [Quite frankly, yes.]

Loki closes the window. A moment later, however, the notification pops up again.

DrStrange: [Do you regret it?]

With more force that he needs to, Loki types back: [Do YOU regret it?]

There’s a pause. Satisfied that he’d successfully muted Strange, Loki closes the window again and resumes browsing the Auction House. Monster drops won’t sell themselves, and all that Witch Queen hunting had netted them quite a bit, even after doing the associated event quests.

The notification pings. Loki glares hard at it before opening the chat window again.

DrStrange: [No, I don’t.]

DrStrange: [It’s not like I had a choice, but even if I did, I think retiring then was the right decision. Out with the old, in with the new and all that—RS needed new blood to continue.]

Loki reads it and reads what he’s saying. That’s the difference between him and the other pro players, he muses. Love of the game.

But that wasn’t why Loki was playing. That wasn’t it at all.

Cat God: [Did you think RS was fun?]

DrStrange: [There were times when it wasn’t, but overall, I enjoyed it.]

Cat God: [Hmm]

Cat God: [I don’t think I enjoyed it at all.]

Another long pause. This time, Loki waits.

Strange says: [Dire Wolves was really the wrong team for you.]

Loki shrugs. [Maybe. We’ll never know.]

* * *

Loki wakes up feeling light-headed with a thin layer of sweat on his skin. He sticks his head out of the pile of pillows and instantly regrets it.

“Cold…”

He curls back under, but eventually, the stifling blankets grow too much. Loki rolls out of bed and stumbles like a drunken man; the blankets are a mess around his legs and he has to yank himself free foot by foot, only to fall against the wall and press his forehead there until the vertigo recedes.

“Hot…”

His throat croaks. Somehow, he makes it to the kitchen.

The freezer seems like a million miles away. The dining table, however, is significantly closer. He grabs a chair, collapses into it, and plonks his head down, the cool wood feeling like a dream. Loki closes his eyes.

Someone touches his head.

He looks up. Gamora looms over him with a complicated look on her face, a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in her hand. It must still be early if she’s not at the gym yet. The Galaxia sisters go near religiously.

“I think you need this more than I do,” she says, placing the glass down.

He appreciates how she keeps her voice quiet for him. It makes his head throb less.

Loki doesn’t remember draining the cup nor does he remember when Nebula enters; he just knows there’s a gentle hand carding through his hair, the affection unfamiliar but wholly welcome in his current state. There’s a vague murmur of voices somewhere above him. He considers trying to listen in, but consciousness slips through his fingers like water through a sieve.

“Alright,” Gamora says, “No sleeping in the kitchen. Go to bed.”

Loki lifts his head and blearily blinks in the direction of her voice. The dizziness has abated but there’s still a dry heat in his cheeks and neck and palms; he feels like there’s one big sunburn beneath his skin.

Gamora pats his head. “Loki?” she asks gently.

“Mmm…”

Nebula places a wet cloth in his hands. It feels good. Loki scrubs at his face and shakes himself awake.

“This is what you get for staying inside all day,” she says.

Loki wrinkles his nose. “You’re one to talk.”

“I _can_ talk, because unlike you, I don’t get sick,” Nebula says. She kicks the leg of his chair. “Up.”

“Go get some rest,” adds Gamora, pushing a cold water bottle into his hands. “You want us to pick you up medicine from the store?”

Loki shakes his head no. He feels terrible but it’s not a _sick_ kind of terrible, more like he slept for three days straight on top of a stove. Whoever’s great idea it was to cook him has another thing coming—shut-ins don’t exactly have the most nutritious diets, even if they’re roommates with a pair of health nuts.

“Don’t let us come back to your dead body,” Nebula warns.

Gamora gives her a flat look. “ _Nebula_.”

“ _Gamora_ ,” she snips back.

“I have a fever, not the plague,” Loki grumbles. “I’ll rest. Go punch each other’s faces in, or something.”

“Boxing is tomorrow,” Gamora says. She nudges him towards the hall. “Text if you need anything—”

“—Call if you’re dying,” Nebula finishes.

Loki waves them off. “Have fun.”

They go. Loki waits until he hears the door close to retreat back to his room and close his own door. He checks the time. Didn’t he have something to do?

…Well, he’s not sleepy anymore anyway. He slides into his desk chair and turns on the PC.

Maybe half an hour of browsing the net passes before his Discord pings. It’s not Silvertongue’s account, however; it’s Cat God’s.

Loki blinks dazedly. He brings up the tab and stares.

> **Bunny God:** awake? :)

It takes him a minute, but he checks the time. Oh, Loki thinks, a little belatedly—that’s right. They were planning to farm Halloween candy today at right about…now.

> **Cat God:** Mm, let me log on  
>  **Bunny God:** ／(=✪ x ✪=)＼

The first thing Thor says to him is, “Good morning, Cat,” in that warm, indulgent tone of his, all rumbley with laughter at Loki’s sleepy greeting. Loki would be more offended if it didn’t sound so particularly pleasing today. He’ll let it slide, just this once.

(He’s let it slide at least a dozen times before.)

Idly, he wonders what it’d be like, to have Thor call him by his name for once.

“Is it tea again?”

Loki blinks. “…Water,” he says, a little muffled.

There’s a pause. “Are you okay? You sound a little off today.”

“Mm. M’fine.”

Thor doesn’t comment on how convincing his reply is. Loki shrugs it off. He’s played in worse conditions, and they’re not even playing seriously—farming is more of a break, if anything. It’s enough to hear Thor’s voice, enough to ask how his day’s been going, enough to hear him laugh and tease and grumble when Loki pokes him too hard.

…He doesn’t realize how much he’d wanted to hear it.

The fever makes him looser. Whinier. Pouty. He wonders if Thor minds. Wonders if Thor hates partners like this.

Wonders if Jane Foster—

But no. There lies the path of badness. He knows because that’s how all villain origin stories start. Loki shakes his head and takes a long sip of water. He feels like his head’s all full of cotton, and there’s no way he wants to make a fool of himself in front of Thor.

They farm for about an hour, the motions so ingrained in Loki’s hands that he could probably do it half-asleep. Not far from what he’s doing now, actually; the candy count is an indiscriminate blur in his inventory.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he does.

When Loki next wakes, his fever’s mostly gone and the room looks different somehow. The clock reads half past two. He’d napped for a long time.

There’s a crick in his neck and an ache in his back from the poor posture, but at least sleepy-him had the foresight to push the keyboard further up the desk so he wouldn’t get keyprints on his cheek. Loki rubs at his cheek anyway. His arms hadn’t made the best pillow, especially with his headphones still on.

Speaking of which, there’s a gentle tapping in his ear. Loki blinks.

“…Thor?” he says hesitantly.

Soft laughter. “Did you have a good rest?”

“OhmygodIfellasleeponyou.”

Thor laughs for real this time. “It’s okay! You were really tired. I think you needed it.”

Loki thinks so too, but he’s not going to admit _that_. His cheeks burn and it’s for a different reason than before. “Mmm…”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Thor, which doesn’t make Loki feel better _at all_. “You mumbled a little in your sleep, by the way. It was cute.”

Loki wants to cry. “What did I say?”

“Nothing, really; just sounds. I would’ve woken you if it was anything bad,” Thor adds quickly, “But really, you sounded like you needed it.”

“…Did I snore?”

“ _That’s_ what you’re worried about?”

Loki flushes furiously. “It’s a legitimate concern!” Because what if Thor doesn’t like it when people snore? What if he sounded like a—like a _bear_ , or something, and it was so horrendously loud and irritating that Thor never wanted to hear him sleep again?

He’s ruined. He’s so, so fucked. Damn it, Loki _knew_ he was going to fuck it up, he just wasn’t sure how, and now it’s happened over something so entirely stupid as a fever nap that he just wants to _die_.

“You didn’t snore,” Thor assures, “And if you did, that would’ve just proved how tired you were. Seriously, you don’t have to play if you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick—I just had a fever.”

Thor makes a sound of alarm. Loki huffs.

“It’s gone now, for the record,” he says. “And…I wanted to. Talk to you. Hear your voice.” Oh good lord what is he saying, why is he saying that, someone make him _shut the hell up_ —

Thor makes a strangled noise. Loki blinks.

“I—” Thor clears his throat. “I wanted to spend time with you, too,” he says.

“Oh.”

“If—um, are you still…tired?” Thor laughs a little. “Honestly, Cat.”

Even though Thor can’t see him, Loki still ducks his head. He feels his forehead and while it’s definitely not as bad as this morning, his body still feels all ache-y.

“…Yeah,” he says.

“Do you want me to stay on call with you?”

It takes a minute to realize what Thor’s offering. When he does, Loki’s heart does a little yelp. “Would you? I mean, is that okay? Don’t you have, um, things—”

“No,” says Thor, “I’m free.”

“Oh.”

Loki curls his toes. He teeters in his seat and wants— _wants_. Yes; not just one specific thing, but a general, all-encompassing _want_ for…for…

“Yeah?” Thor asks softly.

Loki presses his hands together over his mouth. “Mmm,” he says. “Let me—I’ll go get my laptop.”

“Okay.”

He trips over a few things in his rush, but soon, Loki’s snuggled under the covers, Bunny God plushie in arms, earphones in his ears and laptop nestled in the pillows to prevent it from falling off, the charging wire dangling off the bed.

“Can you hear me?” he asks, just a hedge short of shy.

“Yeah,” Thor says, “I can hear you.”

It’s…different, hearing Thor from here. Familiar, because this is the position Loki’s watched a lot of his streams in, but different too because it’s not a stream and Thor is speaking specifically to _him_. For him. It’s weird. Good weird. God, Loki hopes he’s not making this weird.

“S’this okay?”

“Mm,” Loki says. “Okay.”

Better than okay.

Thor hums. Loki reaches out of his blanket cave to set his character to follow, and then retreats back to watch as Thor travels around the fields, idly farming. Sometimes he’d say something, and Loki’d say something back, or Thor would tell him a story and Loki would doze…

“Good night, Cat,” is the last thing he remembers Thor saying to him. And then, Loki sleeps, lulled by the rhythmic clicking of the keyboard keys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally supposed to be 2 separate chapters but they were too short individually so I bunched them,, then after a bit of editing it became 2x my planned ch length :((
> 
> Also, trying a new format for Discord messages. Hopefully this looks better!
> 
> \---Some Terms:---
> 
>  **Auction House** : exactly as it says. A user-centric, remote way of selling items where users post their items and the price they want and other users can browse through and purchase. Also a good way to check prices. Most games do not have bidding, only selling at-price.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Thor meets Silvertongue. Or alternatively, where Bunny God got his kaomoji from.

The first time Thor hears of Silvertongue, it’s on the newest roster for Dire Wolves’ lineup.

The first time Thor hears about Silvertongue _the player_ , it’s because he asked. Specifically, he asks his good friend Stephen “DrStrange” Strange—one of the veteran Witches in the league, and a member of Dire Wolves.

Now, let it be said that by this time, Asgard and Dire Wolves were solid rivals, predicted to monopolize first and second place in NA. It might seem a little odd to probe for information about a rival team directly _from_ that rival team, but Thor figures that’s the best source one can get. Besides, he and Stephen go way back—they joined the league at about the same time and kept a friendly rapport, despite never being on the same team.

“He’s got a head on his shoulders, at least,” says Stephen, crossing his arms. There’s a steady rise of steam from the tea in front of him.

“That’s high praise, coming from you,” Thor says. “And dare I say that’s _fondness_ I hear?”

Stephen snorts. “He’s a little shit with an ego the size of Texas,” pause, “but he’s not simple. I’d be careful, or else he’ll give you a run for your money.”

“You can say that about any rookie, and hardly any of them prove their mettle on stage. Even you and I took a season to warm up.”

“Hm,” Stephen hums cryptically, “I wonder.”

It makes Thor curious, to say the least.

“Well, there is one thing about him that might cause problems.”

“And what’s that?”

Stephen smiles. “Trying to fish for weaknesses?”

Thor smiles back. “I do have a tournament to win.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you…you’ll only realize it once you play him, after all.” Stephen takes a sip of his tea. “He’s got a bit of a bad habit. Well— _nasty_ is a better description, I suppose. I haven’t been able to beat it out of him yet.”

Thor’s eyebrows fly to his hairline. “I understand a _bad_ habit, but ‘nasty’?”

“Oh, you’ll know what I mean when you experience it yourself.”

He doesn’t get more out of him than that.

An RS competitive match is comprised of two parts: one 3v3 crew battle and one 6v6 team battle. The former is worth three points where each player takes their turn in a 1v1 match, and the winner of that proceeds to fight the next opponent, carrying over their remaining number of lives out of three. The last man standing wins and takes all three points.

On the other hand, the team battle is worth seven points—one for each unique player kill plus an additional for overall victory. Thus, an RS team is comprised of a set of nine starting players, where no player participates in more than one type of battle per match.

The first round robin begins with little fanfare. For Dire Wolves’ first few matches, it’s hard to glean any information—Captain Dire puts Silvertongue in the 6v6 team, and his performance is fairly mediocre. It’s only to be expected; Dire Wolves’ new player needs time and experience to build synergy with his team. All rookies go through that process no matter how good they are, so Thor thinks nothing of it—until the first match between Asgard and Dire Wolves.

In terms of individual skill level, Asgard and Dire Wolves are similarly matched. The result of the crew battle, then, largely depends on the two captains’ ability to fit their players into favorable slots. For example, consider the case where two players are enough to defeat all three players of the opposing team. Then, the third player doesn’t play at all. However, in the case where the first two players aren’t enough to defeat the opponent, then the third player becomes the anchor—they either make or break the entire crew battle.

There’s a bit more strategy to it, especially when it comes to predicting what the opposing team’s lineup will be and how to best counter it. Asgard and Dire Wolves know each other so well that the planning leading up to it is both simple and more difficult than it needs to be.

In the end, it’s all for naught. No one predicts Dire Wolves to place Silvertongue as anchor.

Thor watches the screen with a frown on his face. The current score is 2-1 with Asgard in the lead, and Volstagg still has two of three lives left. By all rights, it should be a win—a come back at this stage would be difficult for a seasoned player, never mind asking it of a rookie, but somehow…

Why does he have such a bad feeling about this?

“Looks like Dire gambled and lost,” Sif remarks. “She wanted to put the rookie on reserve, but she didn’t predict Volstagg’s Dragon Knight in mainguard.”

Thor is inclined to agree with her. Silvertongue plays Witch, and everyone knows Dragon Knights counter Witches. Expecting him to win this match for them is a little too much.

It should be over.

The match starts, and Thor realizes with a start that no, Dire knew _exactly_ what she was doing.

Sif frowns. “Thor?”

Thor shakes his head. “Volstagg’s lost. It’s up to Hogun now.”

“What do you mean? Silvertongue just made three classic rookie mistakes and lost two lives out of it. He’s not accustomed to the big stage; Volstagg’s got this one in the bag.”

“Watch,” Thor says simply.

The casters’ voices crescendo, and Volstagg dies.

“Beginner’s luck,” Sif says, scoffing.

Volstagg dies again, and suddenly, Sif doesn’t look too sure of herself anymore.

“That’s…not…”

What follows after is a complete, utter massacre. Hogun doesn’t touch a single hair on Silvertongue’s head and loses all three of his lives in an undeniable display of strength. It’s not even a close match; maybe the first few times it happens the argument could still be made, but after a repeated failure to close the gap, it becomes self-evident that the gap in pixels isn’t the only thing that separates Hogun from Silvertongue. No; it’s a wide chasm between skill levels—comparing a mouse to a hawk—and Silvertongue is well-versed in playing with his food.

He’s heard Silvertongue’s supposed to be only 18 years old, and yet he has the maturity to execute these macro- and micro-level mind games on the tournament stage…throwing two lives in exchange for making his opponents cockier, more prone to mistakes, before running circles around them with sheer skill.

Thor will need to talk with both Hogun _and_ Volstagg. Neither of them should’ve fallen for it with their experience. Still…

Even without that handicap, he wonders if either of them could’ve won.

“Dire picked up a good one,” says Thor. His mind goes back to Stephen’s warning and he can’t help but smile wryly. A ‘head on his shoulders’, huh? Well, that’s one way of putting it.

“What the _hell_ ,” says Sif.

The screen swaps from the game to the main stage and Thor sits up. He didn’t pay attention to Silvertongue before, but now he’s curious.

From Dire Wolves’ booth, a tall, waifish figure steps out.

He doesn’t take up much space, this Silvertongue. But his stride is confident, neither too fast nor too slow as he walks to the center to shake hands with Hogun.

The camera zooms for a close up and Thor sees first the strand of curled hair fallen loose from its place behind Silvertongue’s ear. The angle pans. He sees Silvertongue smile. It’s a nice smile, curved more to one side than the other, all white teeth and shy lip on a youthful, pretty face, but it’s barely returned by his opponent.

Hogun looks like he’d just seen the face of the devil.

Dire Wolves wins the match by just one point.

The next time Asgard faces Dire Wolves in the second round of the round robin, Silvertongue is in the rearguard position again.

Thor, however, is his opposing anchor.

The casters comment on this change, everyone acknowledging that this is Asgard’s team captain paying respect to Dire Wolves’ rookie. It’s high praise, seeing as Thor doesn’t crew battle nearly as much as he did in the past.

The 3v3 goes much closer this time. Dire clearly didn’t expect Thor to take the stage himself, but her other predictions are adequate. Soon enough, it’s Silvertongue vs. Bunny God for the first time—both with three lives each.

He’s not sure what he expects, but it’s certainly not Silvertongue saying in chat:

[Do your best, Bunny God]

[／(=✪ x ✪=)＼]

Thor blinks. It’s probably meant to throw him off? Maybe? A taunt certainly falls in line with what he knows of Silvertongue’s playstyle…but all he can think about is how he didn’t think Silvertongue was the type to use emojis. Besides, he’s never seen a rabbit kaomoji before. It’s a bit of a unique experience.

Bunny God: [Cute emoji! Can I use it?]

Silvertongue: [If you can beat me, I’ll allow it]

Silvertongue: [ :) ]

Making bets? Despite himself, Thor is amused.

Bunny God: [Let’s have a good match, then]

Silvertongue: [Yes. Please don’t go easy on me]

Bunny God: [You too]

The match begins.

It’s only now that Thor’s his opponent can he fully discern just how skilled Silvertongue is—so skilled, in fact, that it almost feels like his other matches were just playing around. He definitely needs to watch the VOD of this after, because some of the combos Silvertongue’s pulling off, Thor’s only ever seen in scripted videos—they require so much accuracy that few bother to attempt them in such a high stakes match.

Near precognitive reaction time and top-tier hand speed; where did Dire _find_ this player?

For the longest time, neither of them lose a life. When Silvertongue attacks, Bunny God blocks; when Bunny God attacks, Silvertongue flits away.

 _He’s studied me_ , Thor realizes with a start. There’s no other way he could read his attack patterns so flawlessly elsewise.

But Thor’s studied Silvertongue, too. Specifically, that ‘bad habit’ of his.

It’s quite simple: Silvertongue likes to play with his prey.

In general, all of Silvertongue’s matches go the same way. Using mind games to deceive his opponent, Silvertongue takes control of the flow of battle and easily overwhelms them after. It happened with Volstagg and it happened with Hogun. The psychological effect of being just a sliver away from victory, or never being able to land a hit, or a frame-perfect counter every single time is not little.

It’s also very unfun to play against.

The caveat is, of course, that Silvertongue can’t make any mistakes—something only achievable because of his already high mechanical skill. Since Thor already knows he won’t make any, it’s pointless to wait for one.

He’ll just have to make one himself.

The crew battle ends decisively in favor of Asgard, Thor with two lives remaining.

As they shake hands in the center of the stage, Thor smiles. “Good game,” he says, and is surprised to find himself completely genuine.

It’s been awhile since he’s had to play that hard in a crew battle.

For what it’s worth, Silvertongue loses with grace. There’s a smile on his face as he approaches, and in place of the biting sardony he’d faced Hogun with, he looks almost thrilled to pieces.

“Well-played,” Silvertongue says.

And that’s it. They part ways backstage—Thor back to Asgard, and Silvertongue to Dire Wolves.

Asgard’s the one who wins by just one point.

Sometime after the match, Thor is taking a break in the hall by the vending machine when he runs into Stephen.

“Hey,” he says.

Stephen nods in return. “I’ll treat you.”

Thor blinks. “Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Asgard’s the one walking away with the first place prize money, you know.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Stephen says cryptically. “Whether you know it or not, you did us a favor today. So thanks.”

Thor stares, but he takes the drink.

“Also, consider it compensation for the summer split.”

“…The summer split hasn’t happened yet.”

Stephen smirks. “Exactly.”

Thor snorts. “Awfully confident, aren’t you?”

“Dire’s playing the long game,” is all Stephen says on that. “It’s the summer split this year, then Worlds next. You better watch out.”

Thor considers him. Eventually, he’s too curious _not_ to ask. “Speaking of things to look out for, where’d you get your super rookie?”

“Oh, like him, do you? Dire scouted him from who-knows-where. She’s got her ears to the ground and all that. Speaking of Laufeyson…” Strange frowns. “Have you seen him around?”

“You scouted him and then you lost him. Nice going,” Thor jokes.

“He snuck off. I thought he’d be sulking in a dark corner somewhere, but evidently not.”

“Good luck finding him.”

Stephen waves. “Thanks. See you.”

“See you.”

Only after Stephen rounds the corner does Thor lean back against the wall and sigh. It’s been a long day and a hard-fought victory. Now all that’s left on the schedule are the matches to cement second and third place—the former of which he’s sure Dire Wolves will nab for themselves in an couple hours or so.

The knowledge that Silvertongue had snuck out during such a time makes Thor smile. Dire’s probably got her hands full.

The sound of footsteps echoing against the linoleum floor makes Thor look up.

It’s none other than Silvertongue who blinks at him, clearly just as startled as he is.

“Oh,” Thor says, “Hi.”

Silvertongue tilts his head. “Hello,” he replies. Off-stage, there’s a calm about him that wasn’t there before—or perhaps it was, to be able to perform at such a high caliber in front of a large audience. Maybe, Thor thinks, that calm was just overshadowed by the same viciousness that had once made Hogun shudder.

Beneath that nasty playstyle is just a boy of 18; pretty and waifish and not intimidating in the least. Who would’ve figured.

“I think your mentor’s looking for you,” Thor says.

Silvertongue must interpret that as permission to approach, because he walks forward to the vending machine, waving his hand at the same time. “Strange is always looking for me. I’ve got 20 minutes, it’s fine.”

“Sneak out often?”

The corner of Silvertongue’s mouth twitches upward and he shoots Thor a sly, cunning look. “It’s not sneaking out if I’m still inside.”

Thor laughs. Cheeky brat. He can see what Stephen means now.

Maybe it’s that comment Stephen made. Maybe it’s the drink in his hand—a ‘compensation’ and a thanks both. Or maybe—maybe it’s this, him, Silvertongue, clearly not sulking at all, even humming along to some pop song Thor’s heard on the radio once or twice, that makes him say it.

“You don’t seem very upset.”

Without missing a beat, Silvertongue casually asks, “Oh? Should I be?” 

Thor blinks.

“It was a surprise to find you in rearguard. Captain didn’t predict it at all.” Silvertongue fishes his drink out of the tray. “Jackal got really, really angry. His expression was terrible!”

It isn’t difficult to imagine. Dire Wolves’ Vice Captain is well-known for his rather…explosive…personality…as well as his dislike of Thor.

“That makes you happy?”

Silvertongue lowers his eyes. Thor sees his eyelashes quiver and his lips purse, fighting back the curve of a smile.

“Oh,” he murmurs, demur, and licks his lips. “You said it, not me.”

Thor snorts loudly. He kind of likes this rookie.

That sly, cunning look returns as Silvertongue cracks open the can. “Anyhow, today’s match was very exciting,” he says. “Let’s play again sometime.”

“At playoffs, then.”

And, just like on stage, Thor holds out his hand to shake. Before Silvertongue can take it, however, another set of footsteps approaches from down the hall. They both look up.

“Thor,” Dire says, “Loki. I thought I’d find you here.”

“Captain,” Silvertongue says. His hand drops and Thor lets his own fall with it.

Dire doesn’t wait to join them. It’s not necessarily that she and Thor get along especially well or especially poor; for all that they’re rival teams, it’s more a rivalry of skill level. Thor’s not one to tell her how to run her team, and Dire’s not one to lecture him on his. Their conflicting philosophies have no place on the stage.

She squints at the can in Silvertongue’s hand. “Pop?”

“Sugar improves my performance,” Silvertongue answers smoothly. The smile on his face turns copy-paste. “Would you like some, Captain?”

…A rookie that doesn’t get along well with his vice captain _or_ his captain. Only Dire Wolves would be so dauntless.

“No thank you,” Dire says. “Though, speaking of your performance, a deal’s a deal.”

“Yes, a deal _is_ a deal.”

“You’ll play seriously, then?”

Silvertongue cants his head. “Mm.”

Dire considers him. She must find some authenticity there, for she nods to herself decisively and says, “Then you’ll be vanguard for the next crew battle.”

“As Captain says.”

Dire takes a glance at Thor, eyeing him with a measure of calculation. Thor raises a brow.

“And as punishment for losing once already today,” Dire continues, “You’re not allowed to lose again, or else I’ll place you back in bootcamp with Jackal.”

How much of a threat that actually is, Thor doesn’t know. Evidently to Silvertongue, it’s not much of one at all; his face slides back into a smirk as he says, “Don’t you mean you’ll place Jackal back in bootcamp with _me_?”

“Joint punishment,” Dire allows.

“Well now, wouldn’t want that, would we?” Silvertongue turns back to Thor. “Til playoffs, Bunny God.”

“…Til playoffs.”

Dire gestures, and they leave. Behind her back, however, Silvertongue throws a cheeky wave back. The newest rookie has guts.

…Well, it’s not entirely unexpected. That’s Dire Wolves: the most dysfunctional team in the league. With such a wide array of dissonant personalities, it’s a wonder how they can get along long enough to win a match. Or maybe that’s just the strength of Dire’s leadership, that she can pull together such a team.

Speaking of which, Thor should get back to his own.

His gaze lingers on the empty hall for just one more moment before heading down the other direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dire: I found him on a Bunny God fan forum...  
> Jackal: ...seriously?!  
> Dire: ╮(╯ー╰)╭
> 
> \---Some Terms:---
> 
>  **Tournament format** : appropriated from LoL, a competitive season is divided into 3 major tournaments: spring split, summer split, and Worlds. Each "split" ends with a playoff between the top teams of that split to determine the final standings. The format for spring and summer split is a double round robin, where each team plays every other team twice (hence the double part). Each of these games consist of a crew battle and a team battle, as described.
> 
>  **Crew battles** : appropriated from Super Smash Bros, as described. However, instead of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, the player positions are "officially" referred to as vanguard, mainguard, and rearguard. Which leads us to...
> 
>  **Anchor** : technically synonymous to rearguard, but used more when referring to the 3rd player, or rearguard, is in a "clutch" position where they're the difference between victory and defeat.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Dire told her team she found Silvertongue on a BunnyGod fan forum, she wasn't kidding. She just wasn't telling the entire truth.
> 
> The real story is a bit more involved than that.

Dire loves Ragnarok Saga.

She was never the best at making friends. People always said she was too quiet, too serious, that she never did anything _fun_. “What do you do in your spare time?” they’d ask, and maybe she would say “study,” or “read,” or “play the violin”—any number of things that would eventually lead to the other person losing interest.

But then Ragnarok Saga came along, and she was _good_ at it. Good enough, in fact, to go competitive, and good enough at that to make her own team.

The Dire Wolves, a team capable of felling giants.

She takes in the outcasts, the oddballs, the people like her who can’t seem to fit in. “It doesn’t matter if we don’t get along,” she tells them. “As long as you have the drive to win, then let’s be teammates.”

Dire loves RS because it gave her her family. Maybe they’re not the most social people, or maybe they’re not the best at working in a team—that’s fine. Neither is she. They can work with that, learn together. Perfection takes time and practice, after all.

As long as they’re unified under one single goal, Dire knows she can take Dire Wolves to the top.

Recently, however, there’s been a bit of a problem. Dire Wolves’ top Witch, DrStrange, has told her his intentions to retire soon due to health concerns. It’s true that Dire Wolves as an organization has other substitutes they could potentially promote to starters, but she won’t pretend that losing Stephen isn’t a huge enough blow as it is.

Stephen is a veteran. His replacement will have some big shoes to fill.

“Captain? What are you doing down here so late?”

Dire spins around in her chair and blinks. Jackal blinks back.

“Guess you caught me,” she says wryly. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to log on and check the state of things.”

“We _just_ finished summer split. Aren’t you being a little too diligent?”

“No, but thank you for the compliment.”

“It wasn’t— _ugh_.”

Dire hears the clink of glass against the table. She looks over.

“Don’t overwork yourself,” Jackal says, glaring. “We don’t need another idiot going around face-planting on keyboards.”

Dire takes the mug. “I’ll exercise moderation.”

“Good!”

The Vice Captain of Dire Wolves promptly stomps his way out of the gaming room. Only then does Dire let herself smile a little. Jackal gets the most uppity when it’s something he cares about. It’d be cruel to smile in front of him—rather put on a serious face so he’ll feel his concerns were taken with all due seriousness.

She takes a sniff of the tea and smells Earl Grey.

Well, the captain’s not the only diligent one, it seems.

Dire logs onto one of the many subaccounts under Dire Wolves’ control. They’re mostly used and leveled by the in-game guild, but Dire likes to claim one or two for her own use. Sometimes, the best way to know what’s going on in-game is going to see it for herself.

This particular subaccount is a Crusader.

To Dire, there’s just something about playing frontline that’s enjoyable. Charging in and displacing enemies, being able to tank tons of damage…it has its own appeal compared to running around kiting all the time. Besides…

RS is a true roleplaying game. The base avatars for the characters are all the same, and they’re all gender locked. There’s limited customization with being able to change hair and eye color—as well as plenty of cosmetic items—but a Witch will always be female and a Crusader will always be male. Personally, Dire likes this style. Gender isn’t as big of a factor online as it is on other games.

Controlling a male avatar is infinitely more refreshing anyway. No one randomly hits on her, or asks if she’s a girl or a boy, or relegates her to leech or deadweight—no one makes comments about her boobs or her sex life or raping her and Dire can just _play_.

That’s the only thing she regrets about going competitive: having to appear in person and reveal her gender. But there are a lot of good memories too, and she has her Dire Wolves now. Dire can endure the insults and degradation because she knows her team and her own play prove them wrong every appearance.

Lycan: [Ah, Captain, you’re online at this hour?]

Lycan is the guild master of Dire Wolves’ in-game guild, scouted by Dire herself. For the most part, Dire leaves all management to him, and in turn, he keeps her up to date on the most recent shifts in the in-game state of affairs.

Dire types: [Yes. You as well?]

Lycan: [Umm…well…]

Lycan: [About that. I actually have something I want to talk to you about, if you have some time now.]

Well, _that_ isn’t worrying at all. She takes a sardonic sip of tea and replies: [Of course.]

Lycan: [Would voice chat be alright? You’re in the gaming room right now, right?]

As an answer, Dire switches to Discord and scrolls down to her guild master’s name. Then, she clicks call.

Lycan picks up shortly.

“Good evening, Captain,” Lycan says politely. “Sorry about this. I meant to message you in the morning, but…”

“It’s alright. The split just ended yesterday, so before we get started on preparing for playoffs, now is indeed the best time for guild matters.”

“Aren’t you tired, then? It’s 1AM over there,” he blurts.

“The rest of the team is sleeping. I’m only doing my rounds.”

“…Captain…”

“I accidentally drank some caffeine earlier,” Dire says, boldly lying into her tea. Sorry, Jackal. “You wanted to talk to me?”

There’s a pause. Then, her guild master sighs. “Yes, that’s right. Um, where to start… Ah, the monthly arena rankings reset yesterday.”

RS’ arena is the official 1v1 PvP area. At reset time, many players flood the arena trying to get into the top 10—even if only for a brief moment. The top 10 arena rankers gain a cosmetic glow effect. Despite losing it after getting kicked out of top 10, players still consider a screenshot with itworthy of ‘bragging rights’.

Of course, that’s only for normal players. Talented players not in the pro scene have their owncompetitive streak.

“Did something odd happen?” Dire probes when Lycan failed to continue.

“Odd is putting it lightly,” he mutters. “Here, I’ll send you the videos so you can see for yourself. They were taken by our high ranking guild members, all usually ranked in the top 100.”

“Alright.”

Not long after, Discord pings again. Dire clicks on the link, finding a collection of six videos—all arena matches. She plays the first one: “04 vs. Valiant”.

The player Valiant is one of the guild’s top Demon Hunters, a male ranged class known for their high damage potential. Dire’s seen him battle personally before; his control isn’t bad, and his game sense is fairly refined. It’s possible that he could challenge some of the lower tier pros in the league.

His opponent is a Witch named BunnyFan04.

It’s obviously a reference to Asgard’s team captain, Thor—or as his IGN goes, BunnyGod. Dire doesn’t think much of it. People name their characters things like that all the time.

Well, she doesn’t think much of it until Valiant gets _utterly destroyed._

It’s almost painful to watch. BunnyFan04 flies circles around Valiant on their broom—both metaphorically and literally. Valiant is put on the defensive for nearly the entirety of the match. He doesn’t land a single arrow.

Though RS only has a handful of classes, the main versatility comes from a large number of ways to build them. Witches, in this case, can choose a combination of two elements out of 7, which affects how supportive, offensive, or mobile they are. However, these choices are player-specific. The Witch class itself is characterized by high mobility through their innately aerial nature and high skill cap, as they make use of a combo system to do damage.

Dire clicks on the next video, this one titled “02 vs Valiant”.

Upon seeing the next opponent’s name, Dire’s face darkens. Before clicking play, she goes back to the list and scrolls down. The numbers range from 01 to 05, and in the preview—if she’s correct—each of the BunnyFan accounts is a Witch.

04 was an Electric/Water Witch, a fairly powerful combination in the current meta. 02, on the other hand—

Fire/Earth. The long cooldown spells make it an unpopular pick; so unpopular, in fact, that there’s only one Fire-Earth Witch in the league, and he’s currently asleep upstairs.

Dire takes a sip of tea and pulls out her notebook. She watches as Valiant’s Demon Hunter is once again hunted to death, jotting down a few lines every once in awhile. Even when the announcer declares her guild member defeated, Dire just keeps taking notes, calm and calculating.

She carefully watches the next four videos, sometimes even rewinding them and going through the play frame-by-frame. The page quickly fills up and she flips to the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

The entire time, her guild master doesn’t speak a word.

Finally, Dire sets down her pen and sighs. “Lycan,” she says.

Lycan startles. “You’ve finished?”

“Yes. Remember to thank Valiant and Uprising for me. They’ve worked hard.”

Dire takes a sip of tea, now gone lukewarm. Not only getting crushed in that manner, but also sacrificing their rank to do so for the good of the guild—it must not have been easy for them.

“I’ll definitely pass it on,” her guild master says. “Um…what do you think?”

“Of the BunnyFans?”

Lycan coughs in a poor attempt to muffle a laugh. “Yes.”

Dire looks down at her notes. She rubs at the corner where her scrawl had turned near illegible in her haste to record her thoughts. The ink smudges. Perhaps she’ll rewrite them later.

“It’s one player,” she says finally. “01 to 05. There’s only one person behind them all.”

“That’s…” Lycan pauses. “How are you sure?”

Instead of answering, Dire asks, “Do you know what a ‘broom-hop’ is?”

“Yes, of course.”

Broom-hopping: an animation cancelling technique that requires high hand speed and good timing.

Normally when Witches hop off their broom, they have to land before they can mount it again. A broom-hop, however, erases that delay. Immediately after dismounting, the player can mount their broom again without being forced to land first.

“Too late of an input and the Witch falls. Too early of an input and it’s not registered, so the Witch still falls,” says Dire. “Watch “04 vs Valiant”. Go to 2:17.”

“I’m here.”

“Play,” says Dire. “Pay attention to the Witch when she dismounts her broom. Stop at 2:35.

“Now, tell me what you noticed.”

A moment passes. And then, Lycan says hesitantly, “She broom-hops to dodge and then sends a Paralyze and a Freezing. Valiant dodges the Paralyze with a double jump but gets hit with the second spell.”

“Close, but not quite,” Dire says. “If you look at it from a purely intellectual standpoint, it’s a good play—no, a great play. Did you notice there were two spells before Valiant dodged the first one?”

“No,” he admits. “I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Yes. He didn’t notice because he was directly above her from the dismount—she specifically casted Paralyze first because it has a bigger radius than Freezing when viewed from the front. Not only that, but she timed the cast of Freezing so the light from Paralyze would hide it, even if she casted at an angle. It’s a play that takes full advantage of the Witch’s aerial movement, even if she didn’t manage to broom-hop.

“However, from a techanical standpoint, the play fails if performed as you just described to me.”

Dire can tell how speechless her guild master is as he fumbles for words. She drains the last of her tea.

“I don’t understand,” Lycan finally says. “Please explain, Captain.”

“Simply put, the order of execution would change the spells’ timing window.” At his confused silence, Dire continues. “The steps to broom-hopping are one, dismount; two, pause until the animation is near completion; three, remount before the falling animation begins. If she performed those steps before casting Paralyze, Valiant wouldn’t have been above her—he would’ve flown over her already, so chaining Paralyze and Freezing wouldn’t have had the same effect.”

“But she did broom-hop, otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to get back onto her broom fast enough to get above Valiant as he fell.”

“Yes,” Dire says, “so instead of broom-hop-Paralyze-Freezing, the correct order of execution should be Paralyze-dismount-Freezing-remount.”

“A spell cast in the middle of a broom-hop? What kind of hellish precision do you need for that?”

“Not only that, but she does it again in “01 vs Uprising”—” Dire flips through her notes, “—at 3:01, to be precise. Now, do you think it’s more likely these accounts are run by separate people, or just one?”

Her guild master is silent for a long, extended pause. Finally, he says, “That’s insane…”

“Yes, I think so too,” Dire says. The corners of her lips twitch, curling into a slow, wolfish smile. “Guild master, I’m afraid I have quite the selfish request for you.”

“Ah…yes?”

“I want this Witch. Help me find them through any means necessary.”

* * *

 **Lycan:** https://www.reddit.com/r/RagnarokSaga/comments/8thurqi/presummer_playoffs_discussion/

> **[Megathread] Pre-Summer Playoffs Discussion** _submitted 4 days ago by AutoModerator_
> 
> With the end of the summer split, it’s time to discuss: who will take the playoffs crown and win first seed for Worlds?
> 
> Please follow subreddit rules and keep things civil.
> 
> **[SPOILER]** **2177 comments **…****

**Lycan:** https://www.reddit.com/r/BunnyGod/comments/4sqlroc/call_out_post_on_dh4life/ 

> **Call out post on /u/DH4life** ☆ x3    _submitted 2 days ago by SeidrFrost_
> 
> [Image: the upper half of the image is monopolized by a blown-up crop of a reddit comment thread, where user DH4life states "Sure, I'll eat my pants if Bunny fans steal top 5 on the next arena reset".
> 
> The bottom half is a patchwork-screenshot of the first page of the monthly arena rankings. Ranks 1 to 5 are taken by BunnyFan01 to 05. Surrounding the ranking list are cropped screenshots of the individual BunnyFan avatars, each with the glowing arena effect around them.]
> 
> **750 comments…**

**Lycan:** Apparently he has quite the reputation on the bunnygod fan subreddit  
**Lycan:** I tried to PM him, but he didn’t reply  
**Dire:** That’s fine. I'll take it from here, thanks.

* * *

Silvertongue’s prettier than she’d thought he’d be in person.

Not that Dire had much of any assumption about his appearance beforehand. All she knew was that a) Silvertongue liked to play Witch, b) he had a vicious streak a mile-wide, and c) he was an unmistakable, indisputable fan of BunnyGod.

So when the bell to the near-empty coffee shop chimes and a tall teenager with slim shoulders, long curly hair and a pretty face steps in, she doesn’t realize it’s Silvertongue until he sits down across from her.

“Captain Dire,” he drawls. Silvertongue smiles, mouth curving to one side as he traces the rim of his coffee mug. “You’ve come a long way to see someone who’s not even in the top 100.”

“It’s pronounced ‘deer’, not ‘dire’, please.” As she’s sure he knows if he’d watched playoffs _at all_. “And in your case, I doubt the monthly rankings mean much to you.”

Silvertongue twirls a stray strand of hair around his finger. “Well, I can’t help it if top 100 gets boring.”

“…I’m sure.” Dire takes in a fortifying breath, and then she says, “My name is Dire Wong, captain of Dire Wolves. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Silvertongue stares at her hand and only takes it after a brief moment, his expression thinning before giving way to a beatific smile. “Loki Laufeyson, and likewise.”

He doesn’t like her. That’s obvious to see.

Fortunately, that’s never mattered much to Dire.

“Dire Wolves has always been a team that strives to be the best,” she tells him frankly. “That’s why I won’t bother filling this interview in with mindless chatter. Just answer me this: do you want to go pro?”

Loki takes a sip of his coffee and hums. “What’s in it for me?”

Dire falters. It’s not even a question she considered him asking—the rewards are obvious; it’s every gamer’s dream to get paid for doing what they love as a living. True, fame and fortune don’t come without their due consequences, but…

“Allow me to help you out a bit,” says Loki. His mug makes a soft _clink_ against the porcelain saucer. “If you want to use me to win, I only have one condition.”

“…What is it?”

“I want to 1v1 BunnyGod,” he says, “and if he wins, I’m yours. If he loses, then I’m out.”

Dire bristles. “I understand you’re a fan of BunnyGod, but Dire Wolves doesn't tolerate win trading.”

Loki interrupts her. “Who said anything about win trading? Oh no, I’ll play quite seriously, and I only need to fight him once—the first time. If you feel I’ll perform too poorly against him in the future, then put me wherever you like. It doesn’t matter.”

Dire stares.

Loki continues. “Naturally, I won’t expect you to do this at a major tournament. It can be a minor tournament, a scrim, or even just a friendly—I just want to see how good he is for myself, that’s all.”

It _does_ make sense when he puts it that way. Dire can understand the power of having a goal. Yes, indeed, why play if there isn’t something to aspire to? If Loki Laufeyson wants to set his goal as BunnyGod, then it could even be beneficial to Dire Wolves.

“And what if you never get to face him?” Dire asks.

“Ah, well, that would be rather unfortunate, wouldn’t it?” Loki says. “Let’s set a time limit, then. You can use me for one year—one season. Consider it a trial run for yourself, if you like. If during that time I never face BunnyGod 1v1, then we part ways after and that’s that. If I do and I win, then that’s it for me. If I do and I _lose_ , then…”

“You’ll stay with Dire Wolves?”

“Precisely.”

“And do your utmost to win, even if it’s against Asgard?”

Loki smiles again, and there’s something in that expression that makes a chill run down her spine. It’s not friendly, not eager, not anything she’d expect on the face of an 18-year-old boy talking about challenging his idol.

It’s almost like she’s just questioned the devil himself.

“Yes, of course,” Loki says. “Anything else would be disrespectful.”

It isn’t an unreasonable request, Dire supposes after the chill has subsided. An odd one for sure, but maybe that’s to be expected if she’s going to try and recruit a diehard BunnyGod fan.

“Alright,” she says. “I’ll get a contract written up and send it to you later. If you have any questions at that time, feel free to discuss with either myself or the team manager.”

“Oh, that’s it?”

“Both of us know how good you are. I don’t see a reason to beat around the bush about it.”

“Mm, that’s true.”

Loki takes another sip of his coffee. He makes no move to leave. That’s fine with Dire; she’s not a big fan of coffee anyway, and being able to settle this without any problems is a load off her shoulders. Anything else can be discussed _after_ Worlds.

However…there has been one question on her mind, ever since she watched the videos Lycan sent her. In truth, the layers and layers of mind games in those matches were simply too hard to ignore, and Dire began to suspect their player’s background to be anything but simple.

“Have you had any experience playing in tournaments before?”

“For RS?”

“For anything,” Dire says.

“Oh, in that case, I’ve done plenty. They weren’t _official_ or anything, but, mm, let’s see…” He begins to tick off his fingers one by one, listing, “I’ve played chess, poker, cribbage, backgammon, go, mahjong, pool…”

“W-wait, in _tournaments_?”

Loki pauses. Tilts his head. Smiles without smiling, the green of his eyes covered by the fan of his eyelashes. “That’s right. You won’t find any recordings online, but they were certainly _competitive_ in nature. Do you play any of these games, Captain? Would you like to have a match with me?”

“No, that’s quite alright,” Dire quickly says. The chill returns with a vengeance. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Mm, as Captain says.”

* * *

Dire only remembers her good vice-captain when she’s on the plane ride home.

“Ah,” she says, and slowly sags in her seat. “That’s right…how _will_ I explain to Jackal…?”

Well, if Jackal, their resident BunnyGod anti, refuses to play nice with Loki, their future resident BunnyGod _fan_ , there’s only one solution: bootcamp.

“Maybe one week will do…? Two weeks? Or maybe I’ll say I’ll stick them together for a month, see how they’ll deal with it…”

…

Back at the Dire Wolves gaming house, while innocently brewing some tea to bring to the airport for his captain’s return, Jackal sneezes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh I got really angry formatting the reddit threads so I just decided a preview would be fine and deleted like, 1/5 of the entire chapter HAHA
> 
> \--About RS:--
> 
> I based RS mainly off of two games: GrandChase and Trickster Online (though, Demon Hunter has been quietly liberated from Diablo 3. Thanks Diablo, and also RIP Diablo, sorry Blizzard cucked you hard).
> 
> GrandChase was a 2D fantasy dungeon crawler that I get a lot of my ideas about PvP from. It was shut down on April 15, 2015, and now only private servers remain. RIP
> 
> Trickster Online was a 2D fantasy MMORPG that I get a lot of my ideas about RS classes from. Specifically, Witch and its elemental variations were directly taken from Trickster's Sheep class...with a few minor changes. It was shut down on February 27, 2013, and now only private servers remain. RIP. 
> 
> (IMO the private servers are doing relatively well as far as Trickster goes; I enjoy revisiting LifeTO myself. GC, on the other hand....eh....)
> 
> \--About GFO:--
> 
> And since I mentioned RS, I might as well mention the games I took inspiration from for GFO.
> 
> I based GFO around 2, maybe 3 games: bits of both GC and TO, and...  
> \- Maplestory  
> \- Ether Saga Online (turned Ether Saga Odyssey), shut down on January 4, 2016, with only private servers remaining for Ether Saga Odyssey. None afaik for Online. RIP  
> \- Dragon Saga, which is surprisingly still alive (?)
> 
> All of them are also fantasy RPGs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I wanna know everything about you_ , Thor thinks.

The amazing thing, Thor realizes, about having a super huge gigantic crush on his friend is that _literally every single thing Cat does_ is the cutest, and he gets to be around to see it.

Not literally, of course, for obvious reasons, but—

> **Cat God:** Hiiiiiiiii  
>  **Cat God:** I’m awake  
>  **Cat God:** [image.jpg]  
>  **Cat God:** See  
>  **Cat God:** Eatimg breakfast  
>  **Cat God:** Before 10  
>  **Cat God:** Praise me  
>  **Bunny God:** You’re doing amazing sweetie  
>  **Cat God:** Hhhh shut your face

Thor grins. He saves the picture of Cat’s surprisingly put together omelette into his Cat God folder, appropriately named ✧/ᐠ-ꞈ-ᐟ\∫, and types back,

> **Bunny God:** I’m very impressed  
>  **Bunny God:** What’s the occasion?

Recently, Cat’s been more willing to send Thor pictures of his life. None of them have himself in them, maybe at most a hand or a sock-covered toe, but Thor treasures them nonetheless. They’re proof that Cat wants to share bits and pieces of his life with him, that he thinks Thor’s _important_ —wants Thor to know more about him.

How can Thor say no to that?

> **Cat God:** Poker tourmanemt

Thor almost drops his phone.

> **Bunny God:** You  
>  **Bunny God:** Play poker??

Thor wants to hit himself on the head. Of course he plays poker if he’s going to a tournament. Spectating or participating, Cat’s not going to go to an event he doesn’t know anything about. Would he?

Thor thinks back to what RS tournaments were like. Family would go in support of players all the time, or people would bring their friends along. People who cared.

Significant others.

> **Cat God:**  Oh yes  
>  **Cat God:** I’m really ducking good at it  
>  **Bunny God:** ducking  
>  **Cat God:** Fucjing*  
>  **Cat God:** FUCKINH*  
>  **Cat God:** Asdlkjhfkl  
>  **Bunny God:** …Are you going to be alright for your tournament

Cat starts typing but stops. Thor assumes he’s either eating or sulking—maybe a combination of both.

…Which is probably better for Thor’s health. Cat God as a poker player…somehow, the idea fits surprisingly well? Cat casually wiping the floor with a table full of men twice his age…

Taunting them with that playful lilt to his voice…

Swiping away the prize right from under their noses, just like a cat…

Unbidden, another player with a similar mentality comes to mind. That smug, trademark Silvertongue smile is one Thor knows well. The camera never failed to zoom in on it.

Silvertongue had always been the best at getting others to underestimate him—unless, of course, he wanted to smear you like a bug on the roadside; _then_ he turned into a relentless hound straight out of hell. The so-called ‘devil of the league’ is one of the most accurate names fans have come up with to date.

Perhaps it would have been even more infamous had he not retired, Thor thinks wistfully. He would’ve liked to see how far Silvertongue could go; he certainly had the world-class skills for it.

Thor wonders how he’s doing right now. Silvertongue used to update his Twitter with frequent selfies and shitposts about himself, his team, the other teams—everyone’d been fair game, basically—but he’d closed @dw_silvertongue a few days after retiring, and as far as Thor knows, no one’s heard from him since.

It’s kind of weird. Most pro players stick around the scene or at least move to a new one—it _is_ their livelihood, after all. For Silvertongue to just disappear like that…

Well, that’s one of Thor’s regrets. He’d never really been able to get to know him. Ever since…hm, now that he thinks about it, their first Worlds together? Thor had rarely had a chance to talk to him in the seasons following after. Curiously enough, nothing had ever seen to line up, and he’d never ran into him again in the hallways…

Sometime during those years, playing against each other on opposing sides of the field, seeing him grow, feeling him counter Thor’s every move and forcing Thor to improve to meet him—yes, sometime during those years he’d started to like him, that Silvertongue, Loki Laufeyson, the devil of the league; whichever name, it didn’t matter—between the smiles and the handshakes and the “good game”s, _somehow_ —

But then it hadn’t been right. Even if he says he regrets it now, it wasn’t exactly professional then, was it, to date a member of their rival team as captain of Asgard?

Well, that’s life: full of opportunities, half of which are misses.

Thor’s content with what he has now. Being a pro hadn’t been an easy lifestyle to live, and while being a streamer definitely has its own challenges, his schedule’s comparatively more flexible. It finally feels like he’s got room to breathe again.

“Mantis! Good morning!”

Thor waves. His neighbor turns around and beams at him.

“Hello, Thor. How was the gym?”

“It went well, thanks,” he says, finally arriving at the door to his apartment. “Where are you headed to?”

“Up to the garden,” Mantis says. She even points towards the roof. “Groot’s apples are just about ripe for the picking. Should I save you a bag?”

“That would be wonderful,” Thor says, beaming at her in return. “I’ll make you my signature apple pie!”

“Ooh, please. I’m sure Nebula would love to try it.”

“Ah, your partner, right?”

Mantis does a cute little wiggle. “Yes! She’s coming over again this weekend.”

“I’ll make sure to make extra then,” says Thor. He waves at her and enters the apartment.

> **Cat God:** Hubbyy  
>  **Cat God:** You aren’t going to wish your wife luck?

—And nearly slams his fingers on the door frame.

Someone needs to rename Cat a health hazard, Thor thinks woefully. He shucks off his shoes, tosses his gym bag to the side and belly flops on the couch.

 _Hubby_ , he thinks, and buries his face in a throw pillow;

 _Hubby_ , he thinks, and tosses and turns until he can stick his head in the space between the cushions;

[Hubby!!] he types, and slams his thumb on the backspace button. 

[ ~~!!!!!!!~~ ]

[ ~~Why are you so cute~~ ]

[ ~~I would cut off my foot and give it to you~~ ]

[ ~~That was a rabbit’s foot reference~~ ]

[ ~~A bad one~~ ]

[ ~~WhY do you make me so bad at this~~ ]

Before he can change his mind, Thor presses the call button. Discord feels like it rings for a lifetime, but finally, Cat picks up.

Thor licks his lips. His mouth’s as dry as a sand dune as he says, hoarse into the phone, “Good luck, Cat.”

“Wow, a personal call,” Cat teases. “I’m flattered. To what do I owe the honor?”

“I wanted to hear your voice,” Thor says honestly.

Cat makes a soft noise. “Well, you’re hearing it. How did your morning go?”

“Don’t you think that question defeats the purpose a little?”

“Ask me, then.”

Thor’s heart inexplicably warms. He feels it squeeze into a smile, an ache so sweet he has to physically swallow to keep himself from saying all the things he shouldn’t say.

Thor flops onto his back and looks up at the ceiling. It’s a good day, he thinks.

“How’s your morning been, Cat?”

And Cat tells him. He tells him how he rolled out of bed and it was so _cold_ , Thor, the thermostat was at _65 degrees_ , completey unacceptable, but the omelette was good because the eggs were fresh. The farmer’s market is right down the street from where they live. Cat likes the honey sticks there, the blueberry baskets, his nectarines plump and full of juice. And this one stall sells the _best_ apple cider.

“What are you doing now?” Thor asks.

“Painting my nails,” Cat says. “It’s kind of like, a routine? Something you do before a competition because it helps you focus.”

“A pre-game ritual?”

“Yeah, that.”

Thor makes a curious sound. “What color?”

“Black.”

Cat’s answer reminds him of his earlier thought-segway to Silvertongue. Actually, Silvertongue’s the only person Thor’s seen in person who paints his nails black—not just for an Instagram post or a FaceBook selfie but just, they were always black.

“Why black?” Thor asks.

“Well, it’s a nice color, isn’t it,” says Cat. His voice sounds a little farther away, like he’d put down the phone. “You see it a lot in games. Cards, tiles, go stones, chess pieces…they’re always white and black. A lot of our connotations are built on them—things like ‘dark horse’ and ‘black sheep’, ‘white lie’ or ‘white flag’. It gives a small advantage in competitions. People see one thing and only I know whether it’s the truth or not.

“Besides, I have it on good authority that black’s my color.”

“Will you show me?”

“…You want to see?”

“Yeah.” _I wanna know everything about you_ nearly slips out, but he presses his lips together just in time.

“…Okay,” Cat says. “I’ll show you when I’m done. I’m only on the first coat right now.”

From what little Thor knows about painting nails from his mother, he figures there’s still a long time to go yet.

“What time’s your tournament?”

“Starts at one. I’ve got time. Speaking of which, you’re so unfair,” says Cat, pouting through voice alone. “What if _I_ want to hear _your_ voice, too?”

Thor bites his lip to hold back a laugh. “Well, you’re hearing it,” he says.

“Not good enough,” Cat declares. “In this house, we practice equality. How was your morning?”

And Thor tells him.

They talk for a long while yet until Thor’s phone is a warm sweaty heat against his palm. Once or twice he thinks about saying he’ll go switch to his computer, but he loathes to cut the conversation short by any amount of time. Maybe it’ll remind Cat he has more important things to be doing than talking to Thor, or maybe Thor will end up seeing an e-mail that can’t be ignored. He doesn’t want to find out.

He’d much rather talk with Cat.

At some point, Cat finishes his nails and sends Thor a picture through Discord. It doesn’t have himself in it (obviously)—just a hand spread like a peacock’s tail up to the ceiling, pale and elegant and thin.

Cat has small wrists, Thor thinks. Bony fingers. His nail polish is flawless.

His ceiling is white.

Thor can see the corner of a large chalkboard frame off to the side. The writing is a sharp, messy cursive, born from a hand that scrawls precisely as it likes, and Thor can almost see in his mind’s eye a lone figure standing there, thin piece of chalk clenched between his fingers, black nail polish glossy under the main room lights.

“Nice chalkboard.”

“Is it weird? I can’t stand the smell of Expo markers.”

“No—I like to mind map as well.”

And then he tells Cat about the whiteboard walls they’d had in Asgard gaming house where they’d brainstorm and sketch battle formations in the strategy room. How Thor could sit there and draw for hours, just unloading everything in his head, and how unconditionally his teammates had trusted him with all his harebrained ideas.

“I’ll get odorless markers, just for you,” Thor adds, and only after realizes how that might sound.

“You better. If I can smell it, they’re gone.”

“Better than leaving a trail of chalk dust on the floor,” he teases.

“We’re not heathens; use a broom!”

Eventually, Cat has to leave for his tournament, and Thor figures he should get up and _do things_ too.

“I’ll be back around 9 if you’re still on,” Cat says casually, as if he’ll still be right as rain to play after a seven-hour long tournament. Thor thinks about it. Knowing Cat…it’s possible.

“You should rest after. I’ll probably be streaming anyway.”

“Mmm.”

“Take a cat nap,” Thor suggests. “I know you love those.”

“I do love naps,” Cat says lazily. He makes a soft, satisfied sound as if he’d just stretched. “Mm, sure, why not.”

“Not going to be contrary?”

“It won’t make much of a difference to me anyway,” Cat says mysteriously. “Have fun streaming.”

Thor blinks. “Sure. Good luck with your tournament?”

“Well, naturally.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a whole plot planned out but it's ok clearly Thor and Loki having a domestic conversation over the phone is far more important


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds an old relic of a time long past. 
> 
> Well, you know what they say—out with the old, in with the new.

Some people collect action figures. Other people collect plush toys, video games, shoes, purses…

For Loki, it’s nail polish.

Not on an extreme scale—it’s a casual sort of thing, where he’ll see something nice and pick it up at a pace faster than he can go through. He has his own display case meticulously aligned by color and brand, a bottle of 100% acetone remover on the side as well as his favorite moisturizer and wipes.

A basic dark coat of color is the best, but occasionally he’ll get fancy and add nail art.

He’d tried the water-filled acrylic nails for a time—’aquarium’ nails that he’d fill with stars and silver glitter over a base of black—which was nice, until he wanted to do any amount of serious gaming at all. But that’s usually the case for the more flamboyant nail art, so on normal days, he’ll keep it simple.

Midnight green is for bad days. Bordeaux red when he’s feeling mean. Black for tournaments, _always_ , but not exclusively—it looks good on him, after all—and silver and gold are for accents.

(He especially loves the look of gold lace on his fingers. The silver makes cute minimalist snakes.)

When he was a kid, Loki used to hate his hands. He’d dreamed more than once of cutting them off, severing the bond between property and owner with one quick swing of a butcher knife. Painting his nails had been his way of branding the parts of his body he had no claim to otherwise.

Because while Laufey could own his eyes, his mouth, his mind and his hands, he couldn’t own him forever. And nail polish—consciously trimming, cleaning, adorning his nails and taking care of his hands that had only known how to be used, not cherished—had been the first step to reclaiming himself.

Games? Games, Loki’s still learning how to love, even now. But hands—hands he can do.

So when Thor asks to see, it’s a little like baring his heart through a photograph.

But Thor isn’t surprised or derisive or squicked, unlike Helbindi or Byleistr. Even Dire Wolves gave him odd looks when they’d first walked in on him painting his nails. Thor shows interest, then he moves on like everything’s normal, because it is—and Loki thinks that means more than anything he could’ve said about it.

Funny how that works. Maybe actions do speak louder than words after all.

“Chapstick, chapstick, where’s—ah, maybe there…”

Loki pulls open the first drawer of his desk and rummages through. There’s pens of various colors, several miniature notepads, a pack of origami paper, cough drops, a sudoku book for destressing, and finally—

“Hm?”

A loose slip of paper falls out from one of the notepads. Loki isn’t all too fond of loose leaf—too easy for something to get lost. He takes the paper and unfolds it.

It’s wrinkled soft with time. The creases are so old they’ve grown fuzzy, and it takes him a moment to even realize what he’s looking at.

At the top, written in thick, bold, permanent red Sharpie are the words **BUNNY GOD**. Directly beneath them are two categories: **CRUSH** , struck through with a heavy hand, and **IDOL**. Below that, circled twice in permanent marker is the word **RIVAL**. Annotated next to them in red pen are little notes with arrows.

 

It’s not his handwriting.

It’s—

_“Are they dating?” Loki demands. His chest is heaving, out of breath from running without a destination. It’s only by chance that he stumbles upon Jackal, and it’s only by some rash, perverse urge to hurt himself even further that he asks, “Bunny God and—and that woman. Are they dating?”_

_He knows the answer. Jackal can probably see on his face that he knows. Loki wants him to be as vicious as possible, dig his fingers into this bleeding wound and rip out any last shreds of hope he has left._

_But Jackal doesn’t._

_Instead, he sits down against the wall and pats the spot next to him._

_His day can’t possibly get any worse. Loki sits._

_“Yeah,” Jackal says, the most quiet Loki’s ever heard him. “They are.”_

_He knows. He_ knew _this, but—_

_That doesn’t stop the skip in his breath, the ache in his chest, the way he digs his nails into his arms and the way his voice cracks when he says, “Oh.”_

_When he closes his eyes, Loki can still see them—Thor and_ her _, pressed close together beneath the stairway. How Thor kissed her. How she pressed into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. How nothing else seemed to exist for them but each other._

 _He wanted nothing but to rip them apart—replace her—make Thor look only at_ him _. Love, he thinks, is supposed to make you beautiful—that’s what everyone says anyway. And yet, standing there at the door to the stairwell, envy a writhing snake inside as he watched unwillingly the evidence of their passion—Loki’s never felt so ugly._

 _Why_ her _, Loki thinks, straining—he claws at his scalp and wonders why he’s even here._

_(Wonders why he thought Bunny God would ever give him the time of day. Wonders how he could mistake friendliness for interest, how he could be so wrong.)_

_An arm wraps around his shoulders. Gentle enough so he could push it away, slow enough so he could stop him, Jackal pulls him to his side._

_“What,” Loki spits, “Did you think I was crying?”_

_“Nah, you’re not the type,” Jackal says. He leans back, not even looking at Loki._

_Something about that quells the hurt within, just a little. Loki sags._

_“He’s not worth your time.”_

_Loki scoffs. “What next, are you gonna tell me you fell in love with me at first sight?”_

_When Jackal doesn’t say anything, Loki starts._

_“Wait, seriously?!”_

_Jackal scowls. “Of course not, you snot-nosed brat! You’re not even my type. Why the hell would I like you when there’s someone like Captain Dire on the team?”_

_Loki breathes a visible sigh of relief. Jackal’s expression gets even worse. Contrary to the normal pattern of things, however, he doesn’t start shouting at him._

_Instead, Jackal says, “Look, your personality’s shit, you’re a bit of an ass, and I doubt you have a humble bone in your body, but shit: if someone doesn’t like you back, then you have better things to be doing than letting that get to you. Bunny God doesn’t like you? Then he’s not worth the time it takes for you to blow your nose over him. Got it?”_

_For a moment, Loki doesn’t say anything. Then, he finally says, “That was surprisingly nice, coming from you.”_

_“I’m always nice! Alright listen, I’m your vice-captain, right?”_

_“Unfortunately.”_

_“And what I say goes, right?” When Loki wrinkles his nose, Jackal scowls. “Look, just say yes.”_

_“Fine, whatever.”_

_“Then I say Bunny God’s trash.”_

_Loki gives him an incredulous look. “For trash, he sure has an amazing win rate against you.”_

_“_ Hey _—you have a crush, you don’t have an opinion. C’mon, agree with me, I’m gonna teach you how to trash talk Bunny God today.”_

_“What? No.”_

_“So are you saying he has_ amazing taste _then? I gotta say, I guess Foster is—”_

_“I could find street rats less generic than her,” Loki says sharply. “Even Captain Dire is better.”_

_“And Bunny God?”_

_“A blind idiot for liking her.”_

_“See? There you go,” says Jackal. He pats him on the shoulder. “How’s his decision making?”_

_“Best in the—” Loki pauses. Squints. “Ass-poor. Who dates their team manager? That’s_ so _unprofessional. And what the hell was he thinking in that EXG game, putting Sif in vanguard when EXG was clearly aiming for a Demon Hunter sweep—that’s just a waste of your paladin when you could've put her in the team battle as support—”_

_Jackal throws his head back and cackles. “Oh boy, I’ve created a monster.”_

_“I’m gonna kick his ass,” Loki says, barring his teeth._

_“That’s the spirit. Hey, you like visual representations, right? Captain doesn’t really have any expectations outside winning, so here, I’ll give you a list of my own—I’ll even diagram it for you. Makes it more real.”_

_Jackal takes out a notebook and Sharpie from his pocket. He holds the pen cap between his teeth as he draws in quick, messy strokes, and then he holds out the finished product to Loki._

_Loki stares. “You call_ this _a diagram?”_

_“Close enough! Look, I even left the ‘idol’ option open for you.” Funnily enough, Jackal does look genuinely morose at that. “My only expectation is that, come game day, you put that big brain of yours to task and prove you’re better than the dickhead who won’t even give you a second look. Can you do that or not?”_

_His chest twinges at the second part. Still, Loki sets his jaw and glares. “Kicked your ass, didn’t I? Seven days a week.”_

_“Good,” Jackal says, “Now do_ that _to Bunny God.”_

“Oh,” says Loki, laughing a little. He remembers. It’s been several years, but the memory of his first heartbreak isn’t hard to recall. Honestly, the paper hadn’t really done anything, but it’d made him snort whenever he took a look at it—helped him get in the mindset whenever DW vs ASG rolled around again. So maybe it did do something.

Jackal may be a trash-tier player, but he made a pretty alright vice-captain.

(Not that Loki will ever admit that out loud.)

…Writing it makes it more real, huh? Loki looks down at the note and stares.

‘Not this’;

‘Dangerous but if you have to’;

‘Best choice’…

But is it still true?

He’s not part of Dire Wolves anymore. Thor retired. As for Jane—that ambiguous relationship, he’s not sure about, but if Thor’s going around calling Cat God his wife, then no stable relationship would stand for that…right?

Unless she trusts him that much??

Today is a good day. Loki lets himself feel a little more optimistic than usual and crosses that one off the list.

 **RIVAL** , circled twice, stares back at him. It was what everyone thought—pros, casters, fans, spectators…the infamous Bunny God-Silvertongue rivalry. But in truth, only Loki knows that it wasn’t like that at all.

Against Bunny God or with Bunny God, all Loki had wanted to do was play with him—to matter somehow, like Bunny God did to him. That, for him, had been fun.

Thor always makes anything they do together fun.

Making his decision, Loki lets the paper fall in the trash bin and rips out a new sheet. At the top, he writes in red permanent Bic marker **Thor**. Beneath it are three options:

 **Crush** ( _applicable_ );

 **Idol** ( _force of habit_ );

 **Husband** ( _best choice, obviously_ ).

The last one gets two circles and a heart. Loki folds it and tucks it into his wallet. _For good luck_ , he thinks. 

He grabs his chapstick and leaves.

* * *

“We should just take you to Vegas,” says Nebula, stuffing a forkful of cake into her mouth.

Any day Loki wins is cheat day. Fortunately, tournaments don’t come around often enough for it to be dangerous.

“Make a road trip out of it,” Gamora agrees. She licks her fork clean.

Loki says, “I’d be game, but I’d rather not run into any unsavory characters there.”

“Old acquaintances of yours?”

“Something like that.”

“Hmmm,” Nebula says. She licks a dollop of cream from the corner of her lips. “We could take ‘em.”

“Probably,” Loki agrees.

“And we probably _shouldn’t_ ,” Gamora says, sending both of them a look. “We actually live in a good area this time. Let’s not move again.”

Nebula wrinkles her nose. “Killjoy.”

“Someone has to have self-restraint around here, and it’s clearly not either of you.”

Loki drops his fork back onto his plate and motions to himself. “Have you seen my poker face? I am the _definition_ of self-restraint.”

Gamora doesn’t even look at him. “I know what I said. More hot chocolate?”

“…Please,” Loki says grudgingly.

They save the rest of the cake for later. Loki goes back to his room and settles against the headboard with his laptop. The first thing he does is turn on Bunny God’s stream.

The moment he hears Thor’s low voice come through his earbuds, Loki pulls his blankets around him and relaxes. All the tension bleeds out of him. It doesn’t matter what Thor’s streaming, really—he’s been following him for years, not because of what games he plays but for the streamer himself.

He does wonder, though. Thor always radiates an endless amount of sunshine on stream—how special, then, is Cat, who makes him smile and laugh and speak in that fond, doting voice of his? Is there a chance, he wants to ask, that it’s possible, even if it’s not right now, but maybe some day—

When Thor calls him his wife, he’s always joking.

Loki wonders what it’d sound like when he’s serious.

* * *

He wakes up about an hour later, his earbuds still in and Thor’s stream still running on his lap.

Loki blinks blearily. Breath of the Wild to GFO? Wait a second, Thor is playing _without him_? Okay sure, he’s just grinding Halloween candy, but if Thor told him, they could be doing more interesting things right now.

Like daily dungeon carries. Or hunting Emperor Lich. Skeleton Wings aren’t going to farm themselves!

He doesn’t even think twice about switching to his Discord tab and typing, 

> **Cat God:** you’re playing GFO without me??? Rude

He can track down to the exact second when Thor gets his message. It’s immensely gratifying to watch his face go through a range of emotions—startled, confused, then—

Thor checks his friends list on stream. Cat God is visibly not online.

“Oh shit,” says Loki.

They reach the same conclusion at about the same time.

Hesitantly, Thor asks, “ _Cat? You didn’t take a nap?”_

He says it _on stream_.

[??]

[Omg is Cat God watching?]

[Wifey where!!!!]

Well, Loki thinks a little hysterically, looks like the cat’s out of the bag now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all get to see my shitty handwriting this chapter i guess hAHAHA


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [This is very expensive flirting and I don't know how to feel about it]

It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal unless Thor _makes it_ a big deal.

But the thing is, there are many implications that follow from the fact that Cat God watches his stream. The sub emotes are one thing—it's Discord, it's the embarrassing clips, it's Twitch chat _cat_ -calling every time Thor does something that screams "I'm useless and have a big fat crush on Cat God"—it's calling Cat his wife and knowing Cat has probably _seen him_ calling him his wife, not just heard him, and the path that leads to is dark and better left unexplored.

(Thor doesn't want to feel like the situation is unfair. Cat has a right to his privacy, and Thor has never had any qualms with being a known internet personality. Comes with the job. He wouldn't be in this career path if he didn't like it.

But.

Everything piled on top like a Jenga tower brings the desire he'd been trying so hard to ignore out into the open. He wants to _know Cat_ , especially now that he's been given proof Cat wants to know—has searched him out, tunes into his streams, _gone looking_ for him, too.)

Okay. So he's kind of making this a big deal.

Thor half wants to cut the stream short. Chat is giving him some major anxiety with how willing they are to air out Thor's embarrassing laundry. Cat does _not_ need to see the clip of him nearly falling off his chair the first time he'd called him 'husband' on stream, nor does he need to see that old video from 4 years ago of Thor attempting the chubby bunny challenge on a dare. Don't get him wrong; he's done his fair share of embarrassing things in front of Cat, but some things are better left buried until accidentally found.

...Or just left buried during this very stressful and totally-his-fault time of his life.

 _Please say something, Cat,_ Thor inwardly begs. He doesn't do well with radio silence. It means all he can do is wait, and patience has never been one of his virtues.

(He mained _Crusader_. That's the definition of running in headfirst and doing stupid shit.)

Finally, after what felt like hours condensed into the span of 2 minutes—

**CatGod cheered! x 10000**

**hi**

[omg]

[$$$$$$]

[$$$$$$$$$$$$$$]

[bunny: good morning sweetie cat, immediately: thrOWS MONEY AT HIM]

[im crying sjkfhglks we thought bunny was the bread winner in this relationship but it was cat all along]

**CatGod cheered! x 10000**

**;)))**

"Cat, my beer fund thanks you, but I'd much rather hear your voice," Thor says, amused. "Call me?"

[it's literally been like 30 seconds but i already feel like i'm thirdwheeling]

**CatGod cheered! x 10000**

**any time, darling**

[$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$]

[of all the extra]

[This is very expensive flirting and I don't know how to feel about it]

The call comes through not long after. Thor picks up on the first ring.

"Hi," Cat says in that coy, lilting tone of his. He sounds quite pleased with himself after causing that bit of mischief, driving chat into chaos and promptly leaving without typing a word.

Thor wants to die. He was kind of looking forward to his sleepy voice, but this is good, too—all Cats are cute Cats. The realization hits him then: there are a lot of humiliating implications that come with Cat watching his Twitch channel, yes, but there is also the Very Important Point of Cat being cute _on Twitch_ that he was direly missing.

Instead of blurting that out loud, Thor says, "So I guess the tournament went well, since you just blew almost 400 dollars on bits."

Cat hums. "You can use it to buy me dinner later."

"Ah, so the ulterior motive finally comes out," he says. "You're such a cat. Thank you, darling."

"It's only fair to spoil my husband sometimes, too," Cat replies airily. "Even when he plays without me."

"You were taking a nap!"

"And now I'm not. Invite me, I'm on."

They run a couple dungeon carries because Cat's obviously feeling generous and Thor's on cloud nine. It feels like he'd panicked for nothing, really, and while they'll probably have a conversation about this later, because they hadn't had one to begin with, really, so it must be long overdue, Thor figures it'll probably sound more like embarrassing laughter than anything relationship-breaking.

He'd worried because he had no idea where Cat's boundaries were. As the situation's shown, Thor should really just ask and find out.

 

…

 

“Cat?”

“Mmh?”

Thor’s stream has long ended, but their voice call lingers. It’s not even like they’re doing anything together—just, neither of them has brought up hanging up yet. And there doesn’t have to be any meaning in that, they do it all the time, but.

Maybe Thor should start accepting that there _is_ some meaning to it.

“Thor? Did you say something?”

“Yeah,” Thor says. Pauses. And then, “Have you ever thought about…meeting up?”

Because Thor has assumed it was a ‘no’ ever since Cat hedged away from the idea the first time, back when he first started streaming their time together, that first shift in the dynamics of their relationship. It hadn’t been awkward or anything: they both lived in the same time zone, the same state, it made sense for the conversation to move in that direction.

But Cat had implied ‘no’ that time. And Thor left it at that.

That had been over two years ago.

And as easy as it would be to assume boundaries never move, never shift, never change, that’s not how reality works. That’s not how people work. And, yeah, it’s not from a wholly selfless place Thor’s coming from, but he has to think that Cat’s the same, too—that when he calls him “husband” or “sweetheart” or “darling”, there’s a _place_ it comes from and Thor’s not the only one hiding things in plain sight.

“It’s not like I’ve… _not_ thought about it,” Cat finally mumbles.

“Okay,” Thor says. He tries to be chill about it but a smile tugs at his mouth anyway. “What else have you not not-thought about?”

Cat harrumphs. “If you’re going to tease, then I’m not sure how serious my answers will be.”

“Are you pouting? Because I can hear it.”

“And if I’m feeling benevolent, then you’ll get to see it, too,” Cat says. “But benevolence isn’t one of my usual virtues, as I’m sure you know.”

Thor pauses full stop at that one. The dry gulp he takes must’ve been audible, because Cat’s breathy laughter comes through his headphones and wow hey that is _so_ unfair.

“You’ve been pretty generous today at least,” Thor hears himself say. “Let the trend continue?”

“Hmm.”

“ _Now_ who’s the tease,” he grumbles.

Cat doesn’t answer. Thor frowns. He usually snaps back with some sort of retort.

“Cat?”

“I—” a breath, and then, “—you’ve met me before.”

Thor sits up. “What?”

“You’ve met me before,” Cat says again, but this time, his confession is more hesitant, almost mumbled.

“Oh,” says Thor.

“Yeah.”

“Did I…make a bad impression?”

“What,” Cat says. “No, of course you didn’t. I think that’s physically impossible for you.”

“Oh. That’s good,” says Thor, while he mentally tries to replay each and every encounter he’s ever had with a person. He narrows it down. Odds are this wasn’t a supermarket encounter. At a fan meetup? A con? One of his competitions? All his beginning tournaments kind of blur together, but Cat as a person has to be larger than life—if he just thinks hard enough, then surely he’d _remember_ , right?

“Don’t strain yourself,” Cat says, amused. “If you don’t know now, then there’s no way you’ll suddenly know now that I’ve told you.”

And what’s that supposed to mean?

“I’m a little offended,” Thor says back. “What makes you think I _wouldn’t_ remember you?”

“The question,” Cat murmurs, “is what makes me think you _would_?”

And. Oh. There’s. _Oh_. There’s not much Thor can say back to that. He just doesn’t know enough to refute it without making himself out to be the fool.

He hopes he doesn’t sound like he’s begging when he says, “Give me a hint?”

“I’m still deciding whether I should.”

“Is this going to end up in a it’s-not-you-it’s-me type of deal?”

“What makes you think I’d ever blame myself for anything?” Cat shoots back.

“That’s true. I’m sure you’ve never, ever done anything wrong in your entire life, Cat.”

“Why thank you, Thor,” is the prompt reply.

Thor smiles until he stops. He tries to—tries to be softer, less pushy, if he was to begin with, because Cat hasn’t exactly dodged the topic yet, but neither has he given a straight answer.

“Should I stop asking?”

There’s a sigh, and then, quietly, a “no.”

“Just,” Cat starts, pauses, restarts, “Just give me a minute.”

Thor waits.

When Cat begins again, he starts off slow.

“I think,” he says, “that I’ve put myself into a, hm, a bit of a corner, so to speak.”

“Would hints help?”

“Would you be willing to play?” Cat asks back, sharp.

It tells Thor he’s nervous. But that’s okay. Thor kind of is, too.

“I’d be willing to play any game with you,” he says, and it was supposed to be a joke but somehow when he says it he’s dead serious.

“I—” Cat pauses again. Then, surprisingly, he laughs. “You have no idea how tempting that is. But, I don’t think I want to make this a game. I get kind of—cruel, sometimes, you know, about games, and this isn’t something I want to risk with that.”

 _They’re_ something he doesn’t want to risk with that, Thor hears.

“You are a little mean-spirited,” Thor murmurs. “I could handle it.”

“Oh, I know,” and there it is, that tone—knowing, coy, laughing. Something must be amusing to him.

Thor realizes with a start that he’s closer than ever before to _seeing_ what that looks like instead of just hearing it.

“But maybe I don’t want you to, this time.”

And. That’s.

 _That’s perfectly alright_ , Thor thinks, while at the same time, _that is not perfectly alright. I’m going to die. Oh my god how is he so cute_.

“I’m thinking,” Cat says. “I didn’t expect to be having this conversation with you today.”

“To be fair, neither did I. It was kind of a spontaneous decision, really.”

“Isn’t it always, with you?” He sounds fond. “I think. There’s not really an issue beyond, you know, not telling you who I am in the beginning. I mean, you probably don’t hate me— _probably_ …”

“That is a very low hanging fruit. Should I be worried?”

“I don’t know, should _I_ be?”

The question throws him off, but the more Thor thinks about it, the fairer it seems. For some reason (a just reason, but not one Thor imagines is as important as it seems), Cat is nervous. And he’s not that, often. Does he think Thor will hate him when he finds out?

It’s a thought that makes him frown. The idea of hating Cat is so within the realm of impossibility that it might as well not exist. If Thor’s met Cat before but hasn’t been able to recognize him all this time, that must mean they haven’t interacted much before. At least, he’s confident that he would be able to recognize any of his friends through voice chat—would be able to recognize _Cat_ anywhere through voice chat.

This means the Cat he knows is the _only_ Cat he knows. Whatever his name is, it’s not like that person sitting behind the screen would radically change with a face to a voice. And—

Thor doesn’t think it’d make him like him any less, either.

“No,” Thor says gently, “You shouldn’t.”

“…You must think this is all quite silly then,” murmurs Cat.

“The situation, maybe a little. Half of my head is still trying to figure out where I’ve met you before, and how I was so stupid to let you go without getting your number. But that you’re worried? No, I don’t think that’s silly at all.”

There’s a pause, and then, “How do you know you don’t have my number?”

Thor freezes.

He scrambles for his phone and might’ve accidentally yanked the charging plug out from the wall socket, only to the backdrop of Cat’s laughter.

“Kidding, kidding!” Cat says. “I don’t think you have my number. You shouldn’t, really—I mostly use texting apps or Discord.”

Thor still scrolls through his contacts list anyway. “The more you say, the curiouser I get.”

“Don’t be impatient.”

Thor makes a sound. “Am I so intimidating?”

Cat snorts. “If you ever were, not anymore. No, it’s—”

He waits.

Then, quietly, Cat confesses, “I’m not used to having you so close, like you’re almost within reach. A part of me thinks it’s too good to be true.”

It sounds like—it sounds almost like—

Like Cat’s liked him, too, for longer than Thor’s dared to hope.

The ache in his chest is nearly too sweet.

“It’s the same for me,” Thor says, just as quiet.

Cat laughs softly into his mic. “I really don’t think it’s quite the same, but—I know what you mean. Give me some time?”

“Yeah, of course. Gives me some time, too—prepare my heart and all that.”

He’s only half-joking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Some Terms:--  
>  **bits:** Twitch's specific type of currency donation. Each bit is worth 1.4 cents, with some package discounts (the 10k bit package is $126). Users can "cheer" with bits, and a message will pop up on screen.
> 
> Most streamers use their own donation system, but they usually also accept bits as well.
> 
> ...Don't spend $400 on bits unless you can really afford it jUST SAYING. Loki can actually afford this but that's a story for another chapter...
> 
> \----
> 
> sorry for the long delay, school picked up and then I got carried away by rarepair hell hahahah,,,,,,
> 
> I'm thinking this will only be a few chapters more. Originally I planned it to be longer (with an additional arc for some in-game worldbuilding, which still might happen but nothing very long), but I think I'm pretty satisfied to tie this up at the same time.
> 
> I always kind of go overkill on the worldbuilding and while that's fun and all, I also want to practice holding back and just letting things live on the periphery. That's its own type of skill, yknow? So a lot of things I imagine in this world will end up going unmentioned...but that's also fine. The story will still be fine without them. 
> 
> I guess this also kind of contributed to the long pause between chapters, but I'm glad I had the time to think that over. The next chapter would've been kinda a mess otherwise lol
> 
> Also, to Naleestak whose bookmark note said "please, come back" and legitimately made me laugh, this chapter's for you.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My, is someone sneaking out? We’ve got a flight tomorrow, you know.”
> 
> Stephen sighs. He turns and, yep, there’s Loki, hanging off the banister.
> 
> “Laufeyson, what are you doing up?”

Stephen has insomnia.

It’s not unusual. He’d even turned it into something productive during college: cram in some extra study hours for an exam; work on his research papers; run more tests in the lab. Then when he’d dropped out of school, he’d went right back to putting those hours somewhere else. Namely, Diablo 4.

Some things, you just learn to live with.

It’s a little different in Dire Wolves gaming house. The house itself is big enough to fit them all, but it’s small enough that everyone’s aware of what everyone else is doing. People can be nosy without doing it on purpose. It’s grating, sometimes, even when Stephen as one of the older members has a room to himself.

People end up _knowing_ every little single quirk about you, sometimes even things you didn’t know about yourself. That, compounded with a meticulous person like Dire as team leader, means Stephen’s insomnia is old news within a month of joining the team. And, well, that comes with its own set of pros and cons.

Sometimes, _most of the time_ , he milks the pros for as much as he can get.

“My, is someone sneaking out? We’ve got a flight tomorrow at four am, you know.”

Stephen sighs. He turns and, yep, there’s Loki, hanging off the banister.

“Laufeyson, what are you doing up?”

Loki hums contemplatively, resting his head on his arms. “Thought I heard a rat.”

…That little shit.

“Go to sleep, Laufeyson. And if you can’t sleep, at least fake it.”

Silvertongue’s only recently moved into the gaming house, but he’d been a member all throughout their post-split bootcamp in South Korea. Insomnia had been a little easier to hide there—they hadn’t lived in each other’s back pockets for one, and if everyone went slightly past their curfew to fit in a few more games…well. It’s _Korea_.

Silvertongue had taken to it like a fish in water.

Stephen had originally felt insulted that Dire had put him on what he’d thought as _babysitting duty_ during bootcamp. Being assigned to mentor the newbie while they were in the most competitive eSports region in the world? Not his idea of a good—or productive—time.

Then he’d actually met Silvertongue. And then played a few rounds against him. And then played a few games _with_ him…

Two things had become immediately clear: one, Silvertongue is an unapologetic Bunny God fan. Two, Silvertongue himself is a beast of a player. Stephen remembers looking Dire dead in the eye and saying, _“Where did you find him,”_ like they were talking about some mythical, wish-granting unicorn instead of a real life, living, breathing player. He’s pretty sure he’s the one who got the most out of that bootcamp, ironically. About Silvertongue, Stephen wants to simultaneously play against him while at the same time never play against him again.

But Loki—Loki himself is a little more of a wildcard. He’s reserved with himself; keeps his cards close and his words shrewd. He’ll say one thing and mean five more, say five things and mean only one out of the five, if even that.

Talking to him is kind of like playing ‘the floor is lava’ as a kid. The floor isn’t _actually_ lava; it’s technically fine to walk on, but stick to the confines of the game, and everywhere else is a bubbling death trap.

Stephen frowns. He can’t find his phone.

“Looking for this?”

Loki manifests from the kitchen, waving Stephen’s phone in his hand. There’s a mischievous, self-satisfied little grin on his face, as if he already knew he’d get what he wanted before he’d even asked.

Stephen sighs again. “I thought I told you to go to sleep.”

“Oh, and I’m sure _you’re_ headed straight to bed, too,” says Loki dryly. “Where are you headed? Clandestine meeting with a local paramour? Or maybe off to catch a betrayal in the act?”

Stephen plucks his phone out of Loki’s hand. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels. Try, ‘out to grab a midnight snack.’”

“Sounds unhealthy.” Loki tilts his head, considering, then heads straight for the door. “Count me in.”

“Uh, no?” Stephen stalks after him. “ _You_ are going to sleep. Not that I particularly care about your life choices, but Dire’ll kill me if the baby of the team fucks around when we have a flight in approximately…four and a half hours.”

Loki gives him a flat look. “I’m eighteen.”

“Again, not that I particularly care about your life choices, but.”

“How come you get to go out, then?”

“When you’ve got at least my seniority and a precedent for being a responsible, functioning adult, then we’ll talk.”

Loki looks down at his nails and idly begins to pick at them. “Don’t know about that responsible bit, but I heard you passed out on your keyboard once. That doesn’t exactly scream ‘functioning’ to me.”

Stephen pauses. Opens his mouth. Closes it. “The point is, I’m going to be in hot water if I let you walk out that door. You’re going to be in hot water if you walk out that door. You want a snack? There’s an apple with your name on it in the kitchen.”

Loki flicks his gaze up. All the humor is gone from his face. It’s enough to make Stephen pause.

“Phuc snores,” Loki says seriously.

His first instinct is to snap something along the lines of _suck it up_. But.

It’s midnight. They were supposed to turn in two hours ago. Before that, Dire had been using Silvertongue to 1v1 the entire team for hours, and before that, they’d been scrimming and fine tuning strategies and matchups for six. Loki had started out his day training with Jackal under the personal coaching of Dire before Stephen had even had his first cup of coffee.

To be fair, maybe none of that means anything. But maybe it does.

The last bits of Stephen’s naturally impoverished empathy says, maybe it does.

“Alright,” Stephen says. “You can come. But you’re taking the blame for this if we get caught.”

Loki doesn’t even look remotely threatened by that. Instead, he perks right up and says, “Cool. So, where are we going?”

* * *

Stephen drives them to a bar about 10 minutes away. It’s more like an internet café combined with a bar; you can grab drinks and food on the lower level or walk upstairs and rent a computer or a console. Every Thursday is Tabletop Thursday, where the owners bring out their wide selection of board games to borrow, and occasionally, they even host TCG tournaments.

They have decent enough food, are open late, and he can grab a computer if his head starts to itch for something to occupy his brain with. It’s on his list of go-to places for nights like these.

He’d expect a place like this fits Silvertongue to a T. And, judging by the wide-eyed curiosity on his face, Stephen’s not wrong.

Loki puts on a flattering smile. “Buy me a drink?”

“I’m not exactly eager to find out what kind of drunk you are.” Stephen points out, “Also, Dire will kill me if you meet with the sponsors hungover.”

Loki narrows his eyes. “Fine. I can find someone who will.”

Stephen sighs for the umpteenth time. “I’m going to order. Stay put.”

Naturally, this is exactly not what Loki does. Stephen comes back to the table to find Loki missing. If he were anyone else, Stephen would just assume he’d gone off to use the bathroom or something, and he could probably still beg off on plausible deniability, but this is Silvertongue. This is _Loki_.

He finds him over at the billiard tables.

The pool cue looks at home in Loki’s hands as he stalks around the table, finding the angle he wants. The other player says something. Maybe a taunt. The spectators laugh. Loki himself is smiling, but he’s silent.

Stephen recognizes that smile. It’s half of a Silvertongue smile. The smile that’s hard to see, hidden behind a computer screen, but all too clear after the game ends and the player reveals himself.

It says, Silvertongue is mocking them.

It says, Loki is going to win. Perhaps even that he’s won already.

He takes aim and strikes like a snake. It’s not even a trick shot, but the hit’s clean and smooth like butter. The cue ball collides with the 6 ball and sends it down a pocket. But that’s the easy one, a matter of course—Loki is already moving into position for his next target.

He aims the cue ball at the 1 ball. 1 ricochets off the wall and collides with 7, sending that on a path down a pocket. Again, Loki’s expression doesn’t change—just stays in that perpetual curve to his lip, like everything that he’s doing is natural, to be expected; matter-of-fact. It stays that way as he gets three more pots in a row.

The game ends quickly after that.

“Having fun?” Stephen asks dryly as Loki abandons the billiard tables to come stand beside him.

“We bet drinks,” Loki tells him. “I remembered to get one for you too. You’re welcome, by the way.”

“What were you going to do if you lost, just give them cash?”

Loki gives him a look. Then, the Silvertongue smile returns full-blown—like the devil himself is amused by the very idea, the very nerve of the suggestion.

“I don’t lose,” says Loki. “Not when I don’t want to.”

Stephen starts walking back to their table. “Shouldn’t that be all the time, then? Who wants to lose?”

“The opposite isn’t _wanting_ to lose,” Loki corrects. “It’s not caring about winning or losing at all.”

The opposite of emotion is apathy and all that—yeah, he gets it. Still, the way Loki says it doesn’t feel like he’s talking technicalities.

“And is that often for you?”

They sit down. Loki props his chin up with the back of his hand. “You ask a lot of questions,” he says. And then, “I’m making an effort. After all, it’s not very fun, is it? Winning all the time.”

Looking at the greater context, the comment is a little hilarious, if not mildly concerning. They’re on their way to a major competition. This will be Silvertongue’s debut as a member of Dire Wolves—his debut, even, as a professional RS player. And yet his mind isn’t on losing; it’s not even on winning. It’s on _not caring_ about either.

Sheer arrogance, most would say. And oh, Stephen doesn’t doubt there’s quite a bit of that, but—

He thinks he understands, too.

“It’s dangerous to win all the time,” he agrees, surprising himself. “Losing’s healthy.”

This time, Loki’s smile is genuinely pleasant. “I’m glad someone agrees. Captain Dire is very…”

“Focused?”

“I was going to say fiendish, but yes, ‘focused’ is a nice way of putting it. She’s like a hellhound, out for blood and victory—mostly the victory.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard Dire described like that,” Stephen remarks. He pauses. “You’re not entirely wrong. There’s something of a perfectionist in her—no, rather than perfectionist, it should be ‘the drive to be the best.’ There’s that in all of us by nature of the competition, but…”

“It’s a bit of an obsession for her,” Loki says bluntly. And then, “Yes, that’s it. That explains it. I was wondering what it was.”

“What what was?”

“Why I didn’t like her so much.”

Stephen snorts. “Really. Compared to how you are with Jackal, you’re practically an angel with the captain.”

Loki grins, baring his teeth.

Ah, passive-aggression. Thinking back, he can see it. Stephen inclines his head. He makes a token pass at a defense. “It’s an admirable trait.”

“Excessive; gluttonous; greedy; stupid.” As he lists them, Loki ticks them off with a hand.

“How flattering.”

“The obsession controls her, and she _accepts_ it. People like her are just waiting to be crushed under the weight of their own continuous failure, as far as I’m concerned.”

Stephen shakes his head. “What, and you know better? It’s not bad to be driven; in fact, you could argue that players aren’t driven enough—to practice, to adapt, to learn and grow as a team. Dire’s work ethic is known and praised in the community.”

“There’s a difference between driven and obsessed. Obsessions cloud judgement. And Captain Dire…she really doesn’t give credence to anything other than her own judgement, does she?”

That…was a surprisingly keen observation. It’s true that Dire is the glue of the team; for the most part, she brought them together, the motley crew that they are, and even as captain, she plays a larger role than most in working with the coaches and developing plans and strategies…

For the most part, it works for them. Dire Wolves’ identity, their reputation is as a team of high mechanically skilled individuals. Their teamwork would be a mess if there wasn’t a single person who they all agreed to defer to, and when Stephen joined the team, that person had already been Dire. Dire's leadership style just happens to be very...micro-managing.

“Well, that’s her problem,” Loki says. “In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter anyway.”

“The scores are what leaves a legacy,” Stephen agrees.

Loki hums. If he was going to say more, he loses the opportunity to; the food arrives along with their (free) drinks.

“Aussie cheese fries,” Stephen pushes the basket forward, “Try some.”

Loki looks like he’s never had anything like this before. He picks up a smaller fry at the edge of the pile, turns it curiously, sniffs. Then, he puts it in his mouth and chews.

And then immediately swallows and takes another one.

It’s a little endearing, actually—though Stephen would sooner kill himself than admit it. He hides a smile behind his drink and does his best not to laugh.

“Good?”

“Delicious,” Loki declares. Then, he wrinkles his nose. “Also, really fattening.”

“You’re skin and bones; eat.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he complains. “I meant more like, how can you even finish something like this? It’s so…filling.”

 _He says as he takes another bite_ , inwardly narrates Stephen. Still, something in him softens at the sight of his newest team member enjoying something so genuinely. Loki might be complaining with his mouth, but his expression says something else entirely—so different from when he plays as Silvertongue, when both his mouth _and_ his expression are too full of mockery to have any room left for joy.

“There’s this really good Korean BBQ down the street,” Stephen says. “I’ll take you next time.”

Pleased, Loki beams and says, “You promised. Don’t be surprised if I hold you to it.”

Well. Maybe babysitting duty’s not so bad. Silvertongue’s alright, and Loki’s shaping up to be not so bad of a person either—even if he is a bit of a brat sometimes.

Stephen considers their food, their drinks, the Loki at the pool table and the Loki now, sitting right in front of him. He compares it too to the Loki who sat in front of the computer screen for hours on end today, piloting the monster of a witch Silvertongue—the first Loki he met, but clearly, not the only Loki there is.

Once they’re nearly done with their midnight snack that was definitely more than a snack, Stephen says,

“You ever played Diablo before?”

Loki looks up. “No.”

“Great,” says Stephen. “Finish up. We’re making you an account.”

“It’s like, 1:30?”

“Tired?”

“No,” says Loki.

“Then it’s fine. Everyone needs a break, and Diablo 4’s pretty braindead to start out with.”

“Captain’s going to be _so_ pissed,” Loki murmurs, but the delight on his face is clearly not a rejection.

“It’s fine,” Stephen says. And, it probably is. Dire knows how he gets. He can umbrella Loki under that too somehow. “We’ll just get back in time to shower and get dressed.”

They polish off the rest of the food and head upstairs. Stephen inconspicuously watches the bounce in Loki’s step and thinks, well, probably cross ‘responsible’ off that list, too.

He doesn’t feel too bad about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In an alternate universe, Diablo 4 exists. :(
> 
> A flashback chapter b/c Loki making friends got me feelin some kind of way...


End file.
